Beyond the Fire
by mystica88
Summary: "What comes after fire I wonder? You know, 'Out of the frying pan, into the fire…' because we're beyond the fire now." Sheppard and McKay are captured and put through the wringer by some unknown assailant. friendship only.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Ok, here goes my first try at some Atlantis fan fiction… ignoring a crossover, of course. Thanks for taking a look.

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis, nor do I make any money off of this fic. It's sad that I put so much time and effort into these things that don't really do anything for me… oh well, enjoy!

Chapter 1

Sheppard groaned as he came to. His head was pounding as he tried to open his eyes. The salty smell of the air and the distant sound of the sea made him think at first that he may have made it back to Atlantis. But, by the fact that he could feel rocks digging into his back he doubted very much that that was the case.

As he was finally able to pry his eyes open, his fears were confirmed. He was lying on the ground next to a DHD on a planet that he was pretty sure he hadn't seen before. The sky was gray and overcast and the ground beneath him was littered with glassy black rocks that seemed intent on digging into his backside.

He groaned again as he managed to sit up and get a better look around. He noticed a device on the ground next to him. He picked it up and pressed the button on top. "Good morning, Sheppard," a distorted voice spoke from the object. "I've left you a little recording to let you know what you're dealing with. As you no doubt can tell, you are no longer on P3X-878. I have brought you and Doctor McKay to this lovely little world."

Sheppard quickly glanced around as he stood up, looking for any sign of McKay. He was also worried about Teyla, Ronon, and Beckett. The three of them had been called out by the alliance to help with another outbreak of the plague. But when they had gotten there, there was nothing. It wasn't long before the ambush started.

He had called for them to split up. Beckett went with Teyla and Ronon while Sheppard took McKay and headed the other way. Both of them were to circle around in opposite directions and make it back to the gate. Sheppard hoped that the others had made it since there was no mention of them from this creepy voice.

Of course, there was no sight of McKay either. The only thing that he was able to spot was one of their communicators lying on the DHD. The recording droned on as he reached for it. "No doubt you have noticed that I left you a communicator by now. I thought that you might wish to talk to your friend. Unfortunately, he's not going to be much help to you in finding him. He should be just as clueless to his whereabouts as you. But, if you wish to get off this planet in one piece, then you will probably need his help.

I have taken the liberty of tampering with the dialing device. It's nothing that a man of Dr. McKay's caliber can't fix, but he's not with you at the moment. Also, there are charges set on the Stargate that will detonate thirteen hours after this message began to play. Thank you so much for arming them for me, Colonel."

Sheppard swore under his breath.

"As for the good Doctor, you better hurry. He has just under twelve hours before his current situation turns rather deadly. Don't reach him in time, you'll be trapped here, but at least you won't have to worry about him going up in flames with you, Sheppard. In fact, it will be just the opposite for him."

There was a slight laugh and then the recording cut off.

"Damn it," Sheppard muttered as he quickly placed the communicator over his ear. He tapped it and called, "McKay! McKay, you there!"

Static was all that met him.

"McKay! Talk to me!" he snapped again as he turned and looked around him. He padded himself down as he did so, realizing that he still had his TAC vest on. From the feel of it, his weapons were all gone except for a hand held wraith stunner, but most of his other equipment was still in his multiple pockets. Including a brick of C4.

Around him, it looked as if he were standing on an ancient volcanic run off. Glassy rock littered the ground for what looked like a little over a mile heading away from the Stargate. From there it looked like the ground just abruptly ended. But from the smell and sound, it probably dropped off to an ocean.

"McKay!" Sheppard called on the radio again.

There was a soft groaning coming from his ear now. "McKay, is that you? Come on buddy, you need to speak to me."

"Shhh…pard?" the voice mumbled.

"Hey McKay, glad to hear you're awake. You mind telling me where you are?"

There was a brief pause of silence where Sheppard was about to ask if he was still there before a muttered, "oh crap," came across the radio.

"McKay?"

"Sheppard, where the hell are you?" McKay's now fully awake and worried voice came across.

Sheppard started walking towards the ocean. He didn't know why, but he had a feeling that was the direction that he needed to at least start heading. "Near the gate," he responded. "Right now I need to know where you are and what the situation is."

"I don't know where the hell I am, but you better get here soon," McKay snapped back. "I'm soaking wet and the water is quickly rising and my ankle is chained to the damn rock!"

"McKay," Sheppard snapped. "Slow down! I need you to be specific. Tell me everything that you can see."

Sheppard could almost see the scientist taking several deep breaths before he tried to respond in a slightly less hysterical voice. "Alright, alright… I think I'm in the bottom of some kind of tidal cave. Though really it's more like a hole. It's all this volcanic rock around me in a roughly cylindrical formation and far above I can see gray daylight. The water is already up to my knees and is filling pretty quickly from a small opening in the rock. It's also pretty choppy so if I have to start swimming, I'm going to get pretty beat up against these rocks."

"Ok, well it sounds like I'm at least heading in the right direction," Sheppard responded as he continued to hurry across the rocky ground towards the ocean. "I can just see the ocean from where I'm at and will be there probably in about twenty minutes."

"Great," McKay huffed. "So you'll make it to the ocean… then what! You have no idea which direction this little cave of mine is in and neither do I! I don't even know how the hell I got here!"

"McKay…" Sheppard sighed. He was already dealing with a headache from whatever was used to knock him out; he didn't really want to have to deal with McKay's grating voice screaming in his ear.

"And who the hell did this? And why!" McKay gasped.

Sheppard debated how much to tell McKay, but decided that right now full disclosure was probably best. He quickly filled the scientist in on everything that the recording had told him.

"Great… that's just great," McKay huffed. "What psychopath is after us this time I wonder…?"

"The who isn't all that important right now," Sheppard said. "What is important is getting off this rock. So I'm going to need you to work with me here."

"Yeah, and what do you expect me to do?"

"First off, when I get to the water, I'll have you start calling. Maybe I can at least pinpoint the direction I need to head."

"Yes, because I haven't been yelling enough already!" McKay called across the radio.

Sheppard winced but decided not to be too harsh with the terrified man at the moment. "Do you think you might be able to climb out?" he asked.

McKay was quick to make a scoffing sound. "Even if I could find some way to grab a hold of this rock without slicing my hands to shreds, I doubt that I'll be able to reach the top. Remember? Ankle chained to the rock?"

Sheppard only vaguely remembered that part from McKay's first rant before he got him to calm down. "Just under twelve hours," Sheppard muttered as he finally figured that part out.

"What was that?" McKay demanded.

"The recording, it told me that I had thirteen hours before I went up in flames, but you had just under twelve hours before the opposite happened to you."

"Great!" McKay snapped, "That means in twelve hours, this damn chain is going to go taut and send me down, under water! Drowning! Why does it have to be drowning again!"

Sheppard could hear the beginnings of hyperventilating over the radio. "McKay!" No response. "Rodney!" he snapped. "You need to calm down. I'm not going to let you drown."

"Yeah…" came the muttered response as the breathing began to slow down again. "Yeah, right. I know… I just…"

"I know, you're scared," Sheppard said calmly. "But we've been in worse situations. I'll get you out of there, got it?"

"Got it."

"All right. Now, I've reached the edge of the cliff. I want you to switch your radio off for the moment and start calling out. Give it about two minutes and then check in with me again. Ok?"

There was a brief pause before McKay's voice spoke again. "Ok. McKay out."

There was a snap on Sheppard's radio as everything went silent besides the sound of the ocean and the wind that rushed all around him. He strained his ears for the sound of his friend's voice calling for him, but he couldn't hear anything over the wind and sea. He swore under his breath as he turned his head from side to side, listening intently. He checked his watch and saw that he had twelve and a half hours before the Stargate exploded. That meant that Rodney had just under eleven hours.

Sheppard sighed before he veered to the right and began his trek across the cliff face. He was worried that, even if it was going to be eleven hours before McKay's chain went taut, that the scientist would not be able to keep swimming for that amount of time.

He could tell from the drops of moister that the wind whipped up to him that the water was far from tropical. Cold water, plus constantly being battered against sharp rocks while fighting to keep a head above the water was a recipe for extreme fatigue rather rapidly and Rodney was not the most physically fit person in the world.

Almost two minutes on the nose, Sheppard's radio clicked back on and McKay's now somewhat scratchy voice called to him. "Sheppard?"

"Yeah McKay, I'm here," he replied.

"Did you hear me? Well I know you can hear me now, but did you hear me when I was screaming?"

Sheppard sighed and then said, "No, I can't hear much of anything over the wind and water Rodney, I'm sorry."

There was a brief pause before McKay spoke again. "Oh… well, so what are you going to do?"

"I already picked a direction and started walking. I'm going to need you to keep making noise for me, all right?"

"Wait, so you're just randomly walking about hoping you'll hear me? This is insane."

"Do you have a better idea, McKay? Because I would love to narrow this down more, but I don't have much to go on here."

"I, ah… Well there's always shadows to use as triangulation… of course we don't have a clue what the rotational rate is of this planet and it doesn't help that there isn't really a visible sun at the moment anyway. And of course me being at the bottom of a hole would kind of screw up my perspective."

"So, no then," Sheppard replied with a sigh.

"Yeah, ah, sorry. I… Sheppard?"

"Yeah McKay?"

There was another pause. "Maybe you should get back to the gate."

"I told you, the DHD is broke and you need to repair it," Sheppard replied.

"Yes, I know," McKay said quickly. "But, I was thinking, since we have the radios, maybe I could talk you through how to fix it."

"Not going to happen," Sheppard replied.

"Sheppard…"

"Drop it McKay. I'm not leaving here without you and before you even mention it, I'm sure that whoever did this has found a way to make sure that Atlantis is not a place that I will be able to dial to to get help."

There was another pause, "Sheppard, you need to at least try. You're not going to be able to find me by randomly searching the cliff face. I doubt that wherever I've been dumped is going to be all that obvious."

"And if I waist time going back to the Stargate to fix it, then I'm never going to find you."

There was an even longer span of silence. Sheppard was becoming rather concerned that his rather talkative friend wasn't saying anything for this long. "McKay?"

"Thanks, Sheppard," came a soft reply.

Sheppard was a little shocked at the words that he just heard. He wasn't sure where that was coming from. McKay should have known that he wasn't going to just abandon him. "Of course, buddy. I've told you before, we don't leave people behind."

"I know… it's just…" Sheppard could hear the fear and loneliness in his friend's voice.

"Rodney, I'm going to find you. Now, how about you switch off for a few minutes again and let's see if you can yell loud enough for me this time."

"Right… two minutes…"

XXX

"I hope you heard me th…this time, Sh…Sheppard," McKay's voice stuttered across the radio.

Sheppard frowned at the sound of his friend's voice. He was obviously shivering already and from the sound of the water and slight gasping between words, he was swimming now. "Sorry buddy. I thought that you had a loud voice, too. You must be holding out on me."

"I as…assure you, I'mm n.."

"McKay, what's your condition?" Sheppard asked in concern.

There was a little gasp before he responded. "Had to s. a minute ago. rough . too."

"Ok, that'll be a problem, but the constant movement that you're going to have to keep will help keep you warm for now."

"Thank you, c. obv.," came the bitter response.

Suddenly an idea hit Sheppard, "McKay, I still had my TAC vest with almost everything still intact. Do you have anything?"

There was a pause before he answered. "Yeah. Weapons gone, but… oh, I can't believe I didn't think to look earlier!" McKay's excited voice began to babble, losing the stutter.

"What?" Sheppard demanded.

"My Life Signs Detector! I can't believe that they left this!"

"How does that help us?" Sheppard asked. "I can't exactly use it to help me find you if you're the one that has it."

"True," came the response. "It would have been far more useful in your possession for a change. But this way, if you enter the range of the scanner, I can help lead you to me."

"I take it then that I'm not in range?" Sheppard said as he felt his heart drop. The range of those things was usually pretty far. That meant that either McKay was further away that he would have thought or he had been going in the wrong direction for nearly an hour now.

"No, nothing," McKay said. "But I think I might… oof!"

"McKay!"

"Oh…oh god," his voice muttered over the line.

"Come on McKay, tell me what's happening!" Sheppard wasn't sure he could handle much more of this. Being able to hear but not see what was happening with his man had his insides tied into knots. He needed to be there, doing something to help McKay. Not trekking across this barren rocky cliff, possibly going in the wrong direction, completely useless.

There was a slight groan before McKay spoke again. "Sorry," a slightly slurred response came. "I was so concentrated on extending the scanner's range that I kind of forgot that I needed to be avoiding the walls. Kind of hit my head pretty hard."

"McKay…" Sheppard breathed.

"It's bleeding, but I don't think it's very bad," he replied.

Now Sheppard knew that something was very wrong. McKay was bleeding and not throwing a tantrum. "Are you sure?" Sheppard asked.

"Yeah… yeah. The rocks are just pretty sharp. Just a cut is all."

Sheppard swallowed his, 'yeah right, I call bullshit,' response and decided to let McKay downplay what had just happened. Right now there wasn't anything that Sheppard could do about it anyway so why not let McKay take whatever comfort he could find right now?

"Ok, good to hear. Just, try to be a little more careful. Remember, I need that brain of yours to fix the DHD yet."

"Yeah, yeah. I know; you only want me for my mind."

"Well that and your charming personality," Sheppard replied.

"Har, har."

Sheppard was silent for a while as he kept sweeping his eyes across the rocks, looking for a hole that might lead him to his missing teammate.

"Hey, ah, Sheppard?"

"Yeah McKay?"

"How much time do you have left?"

Sheppard glanced at his watch and saw that McKay was down to ten hours. "Plenty," he responded.

McKay made a frustrated sigh before he said, "Tell me, how long before the gate blows?"

"Just over eleven," Sheppard replied.

"And how long will it take for you to reach the gate?"

"McKay…" Sheppard said in a warning tone.

"Just tell me, Sheppard."

"About a half hour from here," Sheppard caved.

"And about an hour to it, that gives you nine and a half," McKay was muttering almost to himself.

"What are you going on about?" Sheppard asked.

"Look, I'm not going to be able to swim in here forever. We both know that. I think if I don't see your little speck on my scanner in say, two hours, you need to head back to the gate. I can talk you through how to fix it and then you can see if you can get help. If not, then you still have a few hours to search in the other direction."

"It'll give me more time to search for you if you're the one to do the fixing in person and I don't make an extra trip to the gate."

"John!" McKay snapped, suddenly getting Sheppard's full attention. "If whatever bomb that is attached to the Stargate creates a chain reaction with the Naquadah, then nowhere is going to be safe for either of us. The radiation alone will kill us. But I'm pretty sure that even at the bottom of this well the explosion will be enough on its own. If you wait to the last minute to head back to the gate, I probably won't be able to think clearly enough to talk you through it. You need to do this sooner, rather than later."

Sheppard paused for a moment as he actually allowed himself to think over everything that McKay had just said. He had been automatically brushing the suggestion aside, not even contemplating it as an option. But Rodney was so insistent that this was what needed to be done. Sheppard was used to relying on McKay for the technical advice, but could he afford to take it this time? He had a point, but it didn't really matter, did it? If John couldn't get to McKay in time, he would rather get blown up anyway.

He shook his head and started walking again. "Sorry McKay. I'm not going to cut my time to search for you any shorter. Besides, I probably still wouldn't understand what you're trying to tell me to fix the DHD anyway. I need you there."

There was another frustrated sigh on the other end. "Fine, it's your funeral," McKay muttered. "How about I try some more useless yelling again for a while?"

"That sounds like a more useful suggestion," Sheppard said with a tight smile. This was getting to be one of the worst missions ever.

XXX

McKay screamed Sheppard's name over and over as loud as he could, but he never heard anything in response. He would glance at the LSD every so often, but it stubbornly remained blank of anything but his own little blue dot. He had even managed to increase the range slightly just before a wave decided to brain him again the rocks.

He had been trying to down play the incident to Sheppard, mostly because he was rather embarrassed that he allowed himself to be distracted from the obvious just because he found a piece of mostly useless technology to play with. Besides, there wasn't much that John was going to be able to do about the probable concussion that he had now.

At least the chilly water seemed to be easing the pounding in his head slightly. But it certainly wasn't helping much with keeping his muscles from cramping. God, he'd only been swimming for what, an hour and a half? Two at the most… and his arms and legs already felt like lead. There was no way that he was going to be able to keep swimming for the twelve hours that were given to him. And even if by some miracle he could, how was Sheppard going to get that chain off of him? It was pad locked in place and he doubted that the Colonel had been left with weapons either to shoot the lock off with.

And even if he could swim that long, and John was able to free him in time, there wasn't a prayer that he was going to be able to make it back to the gate and be mentally able to fix the DHD in time. John was being stubborn and stupid to not take up his idea. It was really the only way that either of them were going to get out of there alive. But Sheppard had hero issues and he was going to be self sacrificing as always, probably to his own detriment.

There was another concern that Rodney had that he hadn't bothered to voice to Sheppard yet either. He knew that he complained about it and used it as an excuse far more than he needed to, but his hypoglycemia was real. Going twelve hours, particularly twelve hours of physical intense labor, without anything to eat was certainly not what the doctor ordered. Of course, with this cold water, there wasn't much chance that he'd notice the difference between low blood sugar shakes and hypothermia shivers.

And it was obvious that whoever the sadistic bastard was that had done this, knew about Rodney's condition. The jerk had left the LSD but had taken his power bars. That was something that kept gnawing at the back of Rodney's mind. That seemed like such an asinine thing to do that it didn't make sense.

And then suddenly it clicked.

"Sheppard!" McKay suddenly called as he slapped his radio back on. "You were right, damn it!"

"Oookaaay…" Sheppard replied. "Glad to hear you say that, buddy, but you're going to have to be a little more specific."

"You were right about the Stargate," McKay explained in a rush. "Whatever bastard did this wants you to find me. He wants us to be able to get away. He's probably already locked in a set of coordinates to send us to some other hell hole!"

"Yeah, I thought as much. But what is it that confirmed it for you?"

"He left me with the LSD, but took my damn power bars!" Rodney exclaimed. "He left me with a tactical advantage but took away a basic survival need. He wants us to be able to continue on, but stay weakened."

"Sonofabitch," Rodney heard Sheppard mutter. "Well that's good though, right?" Sheppard said more loudly. "If he wants us to be able to continue on, then he must have expected me to be able to find you in time."

"Yeah, but he didn't make it very easy, did he!" Rodney snapped back. "He might have made the task improbable rather than impossible, but that doesn't guarantee that we're going to make it out of here and on to the next lovely addition of torture the Lantians."

"Well that's ok then," Sheppard said. Rodney could hear his insufferable smugness. "We do improbable all the time. Sometimes even impossible."

"We?" McKay sputtered.

"Ok, well, that's _normally_ your department. Of course it's self proclaimed and I can't exactly back up your words most of the time."

"Whatever," Rodney grumbled. He really wasn't in the mood right now to argue about this. He was having enough trouble just keeping his head above water and away from the rocks that surrounded him. His hands were already sliced up from the sharp rocks. Luckily those same hands had gone almost completely numb by now from the cold water. Even the salt didn't sting in his cuts very much anymore.

"McKay, you ok?" Sheppard asked.

"Yeah, peachy," he grumbled back.

"You just seem to be losing some of your snark, buddy. You don't want to leave such an insult hanging do ya?"

Rodney sighed and replied, "Sheppard, I'm cold, tired, and have just figured out that even if I do make it out of this, there is probably more to come. I don't exactly have the energy to go verbal rounds with you right now."

"Does that mean you want to go physical rounds with me then?"

"If you were here, right now, I would love to. I would even let you knock me out cold so I could get a bit of rest. But since you're not here, then the question is moot."

There was a pause from Sheppard's end before a rather contrite voice replied, "Sorry buddy, I was just trying to lighten the mood. Just hang in there."

"Hanging…" Rodney sighed. Although hanging would probably have been preferable to what he was doing now. Constantly fighting the rip and pull of the water to stay above it was probably one of the most exhausting things that he had ever done. But he had to keep swimming. Ignoring his great fear of drowning, if he did slip under now, Sheppard would probably be caught on the planet when that gate blew and that was not acceptable.

"Think you're up for making some more noise, buddy?" Sheppard asked after a while.

With a tired sigh, Rodney replied, "Yeah… yeah, I'll give it another shot."

XXX

_Breathe, shout, kick, shout, breathe, shout, kick, shout, breathe…_ That had been his mental mantra for some time now. He couldn't let himself think of anything else or he would be overcome with exhaustion, fear, and cold. He had to keep this up, but right now, he couldn't even think of why.

"John!" he shouted after another breath. He wasn't sure when he had switched from using 'Sheppard,' to 'John.' At some point he realized that one syllable took less time and energy to say than two.

"John!" kick.

His hands were now so battered that he had given up on using them for anything else but keep away from the rocky walls. He couldn't even feel the LSD that was still in his hand and he had long ago forgotten about checking it as it wasn't an essential part to keeping his head above the water.

"John!" breathe.

"Rodney!" he thought he heard a frantic voice calling to him. "Come on McKay, answer me!"

"John!" he called out again, not even registering what that voice was.

"Rodney! Are you alright? You haven't responded in over an hour. I'm getting pretty worried here, buddy."

"John!" he called again, still not understanding that voice or what he was supposed to do about it.

"Look, McKay," the voice continued. "You have to answer me. I don't know if you're stuck in some mental exercise to distract yourself or what, but I need to know that you're still with me. Rodney!"

And then suddenly it clicked… he needed to answer that voice. Unfortunately, the voice was only in his head, not outside. That meant that he hadn't been found yet.

"John?" he breathed as he tapped his communicator again.

"Ohthankgod," John said on a breath. "You nearly gave me a heart attack McKay. Why didn't you answer me?"

But Rodney's mind was drifting again. He altered his mantra slightly, realizing that he didn't need to shout now that john's voice was in his head again. _Breathe, kick, breathe, kick, breathe_.

"McKay?" Sheppard's anxious voice sounded again.

"Yeah… yeah, 'm here."

"McKay, what's going on? Why aren't you speaking?"

"Kinda… busy…" he muttered, though he wasn't exactly sure what he was busy with. All he had to do was kick and breathe, how hard could that be?

After a bit of a pause, Sheppard's voice sounded again. It no longer had the tight anxiety to it but was now a forced calm. "Rodney, I need you to tell me what's wrong."

"Wrong?" he muttered. He didn't understand the question. There wasn't anything wrong. He was still breathing, he was still kicking, that was all there was, right? He wasn't supposed to be shouting right now, was he?

"Rodney," the forced calm voice was speaking again. "You've been treading cold water for nearly nine hours now. That's an impressive feat for anyone and not without costs. You need to talk to me, buddy. Tell me what's going on."

"I… numb," Rodney finally managed to respond. Yes, that was the word, he was numb. He thought that he probably should be in quite a lot of pain, but he wasn't. It was all numb. He wasn't even sure when his hands came in contact with rocks anymore. It was just another automatic response now whenever he got close.

"Ok, Rodney," that voice said after a pause. "That's understandable. You just have to keep swimming, ok? I can't be far away now."

"Yeah," he breathed back. But it didn't feel like he was actually speaking to someone, it was just another automatic response. Because all that there was to his world was to kick and breathe, kick and breathe.

"Rodney, how long since you check the Life Signs?"

"Life…?" but then a picture of the small white devise that was clutched in his hand formed in his head. Yes, that had been part of his world some time ago, but he had forgotten it. "Oh…" he glanced down at it. Everything was a blur. After blinking hard a few times, he was able to see a blue dot dancing around on the screen.

Taking another breath, he closed his eyes again and then opened them, trying very hard to concentrate on that tiny little screen. Those blue dots were important somehow… wait… dot_s_

"John, two dots… there'r two dots," he said. He knew this was significant somehow and that the voice would want to know about it, but he couldn't remember why. Why were two dots significant?

"Rodney, that's great! Tell me where mine is in relation to you."

"I…" but he didn't understand. They were dots on a screen, how could they tell the voice where he was?

"Rodney, I need you to concentrate," the voice was urgent but still in that forced calm tone. Something about that tone told Rodney that he needed to pay attention. That what the voice was saying was terribly important.

"Yes, concentrate," he managed to mumble back as he stared at the screen some more. One of the blue dots was in the center of the screen and not moving while the other one was moving at a diagonal across the screen. "Left…" he muttered, fairly certain that's what those little blue dots were telling him.

"Ok, McKay, I'm angling left. Keep directing me."

_A/N: Will Sheppard find McKay in time? Will they manage to get out before the gate explodes? Stay tuned till next week for the answer to these and more…_

_Oh, and review… reviews help! Thanks!_


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Welcome back!

Thank you for the interest and the couple of reviews. I love to hear from you, so feel free to comment on anything. I appreciate constructive criticism as well as compliments. Thanks again and here we go!

Chapter 2

It took some time and more than a little trial and error before Rodney was able to effectively guide that other blue dot to the stationary one. But suddenly there was a voice calling from above his head rather than inside it.

"Rodney!"

"Sheppard…" Rodney replied as suddenly most of his fuzzy memory came flooding back. Sheppard had found him; everything was going to be all right now.

"I told you I'd find you," Sheppard said with a grin plastered ear to ear on his face.

"That's great, now get me out of here," Rodney yelled back.

He was still a good eight to ten feet below the top of the hole. Even if Sheppard could figure out a way to climb down, there was little chance that he was going to make it back up with McKay in tow.

"Ok," Sheppard was saying as he contemplated this same problem. "How long is that chain you said that's on your ankle?"

"Chain?... oh, yeah, about twenty feet."

"Ok, sounds good." Sheppard was shucking off his vest then and pulling something out of one of the pockets.

"What are you planning?" McKay demanded.

Sheppard was eyeing the walls now as he pulled out something else from another pocket. "Well, first off, I'm going to need to get that chain off."

"Yeah, had that much figured out. How you gonna pull that off, Houdini?"

"A little of this," Sheppard replied with a grin as he held up a yellow package and gave it a shake.

"Oh god, that's not what I think it is, is it?"

"C4," Sheppard confirmed with a smile.

"You do realize that I'd like to keep my foot, and my ankle and leg too, right?"

"Don't worry, McKay, there's at least fifteen feet of water between the end of that chain and your foot. And it's not like I plan on using the whole thing."

"Wait, you... The end?"

Sheppard nodded, "Yeah. I'll dive down and plant the C4, blow it, and then use the chain to help haul you up."

"I'd say that was an insane plan, but right now I can't think clearly enough to tell you all of the reasons."

"Relax, McKay. I'm going to get you out of this. I already promised you that."

"Yeah, I know," he replied wearily. "Just glad you're here."

Sheppard nodded and finished whatever preparations that he needed to. "Ok, I'm coming down now."

He had his vest slung over his shoulder and Rodney could see that he had a pair of black gloves on now. "I know you've probably been avoiding the sides, Rodney, but I need to you make a little room so I don't hit you on my way down."

Rodney had to concentrate to comprehend what it was that John was asking him to do a moment but then he complied. He tried to cling to the rock with his completely numb and shaky fingers, but it wasn't much good. In the end he wound up letting the water pound him into the side a few times until John was suddenly in the water with him.

"Jesus, Rodney! You weren't kidding. This stuff is freezing!" John said as he came up sputtering.

Rodney just stared back at him. John didn't like how pale his friend looked. He was shaking slightly, but whether that was the low blood sugar or the hypothermia or a combination of both, John didn't know. Rodney's lips were blue tinged, nearly the same color as his glassy eyes.

"Hang in there just a little longer, Rodney," John told him as he reached out and pulled his friend away from the rocky wall. He gently pried the LSD from Rodney's hand that seemed to have frozen around it. "We don't need this right now, I think," John told him and then tucked it into one of Rodney's vest pockets.

He didn't like how Rodney just continued to stare blankly at him. "You still with me, buddy?" he asked.

After another pause of staring, Rodney managed to give him one quick nod. John realized that was going to have to do for now. He noticed how tore up his friend's hands were and he quickly pulled off his gloves. "Here, you can wear these until I need to climb out again."

He had already put on the right glove and was nearly finished shoving the left hand on when Rodney's mind seemed to suddenly catch up with what was going on. "Climb? You expect to climb this thing?"

"That's the plan, Rodney. These gloves will help to give me purchase and protect my hands. I also have a bit more training in that area than you, buddy."

"Oh, yeah, I guess so..." he muttered as his eyes glazed over again.

"Hey!" John snapped as he took McKay's face in his hands and stared him in the eye. "Stay with me, all right? We're almost out of this."

"Yeah, yeah, almost out..."

Sheppard continued to stare into those weary and glazed eyes a moment before he sighed and released him. He handed his vest over to McKay and pulled out the small piece of C4 that he had already sectioned off and attached the detonator to. "Hold on to this for me for a minute, ok?"

Rodney nodded his head jerkily as he said, "Yeah, I can do that."

Sheppard grasped Rodney's shoulder a moment and tried to give him a reassuring smile. "Ok. I'll be right back."

He took a deep breath and then dove under the water. He used the chain to help guide him down. It was a long ways down and by the time his hand brushed the rock that the chain was attached to, his lungs were already burning. He tried to keep his hands from shaking with cold as he placed the charge on the rock right where the chain was attached.

As soon as he was finished, he turned and pointed his face up again and pushed off from the bottom with his feet, shooting back up to the surface again. He broke the surface, sputtering and gasping for breath.

"John?' John?" Rodney exclaimed as he reached out for his friend.

"It's ok, Rodney. I'm right here, I'm ok." he quickly assured the scientist when he saw the terror in his eyes. "I'm ok, buddy," he said again as he wrapped his arm around Rodney and finally took the strain off of his exhausted muscles, swimming for the both of them.

Rodney sagged in his arms as a slight whimper caught in his throat. "God, I'm sorry... I... just can't..."

"Shh, Rodney, it's all right. I know; you've done great, buddy. I'm gonna help you now, ok?"

He nodded as he unconsciously latched even tighter onto John. Sheppard had to suppress a shudder as he realized how extremely cold his friend was. He was leaching even further amounts of heat from John's body just by clinging to him like that.

"Rodney, I need to blow that charge now, ok?"

McKay nodded again. Sheppard sighed and brought McKay closer to the wall. He placed his back against the rough surface and allowed the turbulent water to push them both into it. Reaching into a pocket of his vest that Rodney was still clutching, John pulled out the remote detonator.

"You ready?" he asked Rodney.

He nodded again.

John held up the control so that McKay could see what he was doing. He flipped up the cover and then, after a brief pause, flipped the switch. There was a sudden surge of water around them that slammed John backward into the rocks. He thought he heard McKay mutter some expletive, but he was too busy trying to keep them from smashing into the walls to really hear what his friend was saying.

After the water finally calmed back down to the dull turbulence that it had from the beginning, McKay coughed and said, "Brilliant plan. It's a wonder that we didn't get smashed to pieces on this rock!"

John couldn't help but grin at McKay. "Let's see if it worked," John said as he dove under just enough to reach Rodney's ankle. He grasped the chain and then surfaced again.

He quickly took a hold of McKay again, supporting him from swimming, as he reeled in the chain. It came up without a hitch.

Sheppard took his vest back from McKay then and set to work making a seat attached to the end of the chain for him.

"Ok," he said as soon as he was satisfied. "I'm going to have to let go again for a little while."

He heard the slight rasp of fear in Rodney's next breath, but he didn't say anything. "I know you're dead tired, Rodney, but I have to climb up there so I can get you out. Ok?"

"Yeah... yes, go ahead... I'll be all right for a little while yet."

"I'll need my gloves back," he said and then helped Rodney to take them off again and put them on his own hands. "Ok. I won't be long," he looked up and saw that the distance wasn't quite as far now as it had been when he plunged into the water. It really was rising quickly.

He gave McKay's shoulder another squeeze and then released him again. He could hear Rodney struggle for a second to remember how to keep himself up, but when he looked back, it seemed he had settled back into whatever routine it was that had kept him going this long.

Sheppard gave his friend a nod and then began his assent. It was a slow and painful process as he climbed the slick and glassy walls, trailing a chain behind him. He glanced down several times to assure himself that Rodney was still staying above the surface. He could tell that the poor scientist had retreated back into his mind, blocking out everything that didn't pertain to keeping his head above water.

John shook his head to himself at how much Rodney could continue to amaze him even after all these years.

It was a slow and arduous climb, but he finally made it to the top and scrambled over the edge. He was glad to see that there was a lip of rock on one side and positioned himself there, bracing his feet against the rock.

"Ok, Rodney," he called down. "I'm going to pull you up now."

There wasn't a response which urged John to hurry. He wasn't all that thrilled about the prospect of hauling his friend up, but it was only about six or seven feet by this point so it was do able.

He pulled up the slack and then braced himself as he began to pull McKay out of the water. He heard a slight yelp of surprise from below, indicating that McKay hadn't heard him, but he kept pulling at the chain.

Slowly, one hand over the other, he pulled it up and over the edge of the hole. When he could hear Rodney's ragged breathing just below the edge, he sat forward and peered over the edge, arm muscles shaking with the strain.

"Rodney?" he called as he saw McKay grasping the chain tightly with both hands, eyes squeezed shut as he gasped for breath. "Hey, McKay," Sheppard snapped, winning him the sight of Rodney's terrified eyes. "I need you to take my hand, buddy," he said as he adjusted his grip with his right hand and then held his left out to McKay.

Rodney just stared at the offered hand without understanding while he continued to white knuckle grip the chain. "Come on, Rodney!" Sheppard practically growled at him. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep his grip like that. "Take my hand so I can help you over the edge and you don't get cut to pieces on this rock."

McKay swallowed and then met Sheppard's eyes before he gave a barely perceptible nod. Slowly, he peeled his right hand from the chain and grasped John's.

With a lot of scrambling and a fair amount of cuss words, John managed to get McKay over the edge and flopped down, face first, on the stone ground of the cliff. John fell back a moment, catching his breath as he stared up at the gray sky above.

"Shh…shhhe…pppard?" Rodney stuttered in a whisper.

"Yeah, Rodney, I'm still here," he said as he sat up again wearily and went about assessing his friend's condition.

He was shivering terribly now where he had curled up into a ball. Sheppard was glad that he had removed a few items from his vest before he had dove below in preparation for getting Rodney up here.

First things first though, he needed to get the chain off of McKay's ankle. Looking around, he found a large sturdy rock and brought it over. He braced the lock against another stone on the ground and then slammed the one in his hand against that one. After a few more knocks, the lock came loose and Sheppard was able to remove the shackle from McKay's ankle.

That done, Sheppard moved to the next most important matter, getting McKay warm again. "Sorry, buddy, but I need to get you out of those wet clothes," Sheppard said as he came over and tried to get Rodney to sit up enough to remove his vest and tee-shirt.

"Ttt…time?" Rodney chattered. He was shaking so badly now that he couldn't even begin to help Sheppard to get out of his frigid and sodden clothes.

Sheppard glanced at his watch, "We have just over three hours. I think about an hour to get to the gate from here and you said it will take about an hour to fix. That means we have an hour to make sure you're good, all right?"

"Sssssssure," Rodney hissed back. John had his vest and shirt off now and was reaching for his belt. "Nnnevvver knnnew you cccccared, John," McKay stuttered as Sheppard pulled his belt free.

Sheppard gave him a half smile as he worked as Rodney's pants. "You never gave me a chance," he replied.

A few moments later, McKay was stripped to his boxers and Sheppard had thrown an emergency blanket over him that he had pulled from his vest earlier. Next he pulled out two chemical warmers and broke them, starting the chemical reaction to get the heat going. He tucked them into the blanket with McKay and then he began to pull off his own wet items.

"Sssssso cccccold."

"I know, Rodney. I'm trying to fix that right now," Sheppard replied.

"Got lllllost, down thththere."

Sheppard paused after he pulled his own shirt off and looked back at McKay. He wasn't sure what his friend was talking about. "Yeah," he finally said as he began to work out of his own wet pants. "But I found you. You're going to be ok now, Rodney."

"Ttired."

"I know," Sheppard said quickly as he returned to McKay's side. "But you can't sleep just yet. I'm sorry, but if you fall asleep while you're this cold, you probably won't wake again." He pulled the blanket aside then, causing McKay to gasp at the rush of cool air.

"Sorry, buddy, I know it's a cliché, but I'm going to have to help you warm up. It's the fastest way and we don't have a whole lot of time."

"God, Shhheppard! Yyyyou're hhhottt."

"Why thank you, McKay," he said with a smile.

"Nnnot what I meant… you knnnnow it."

Sheppard sighed. "I'm not hot, McKay. In fact, I'm a bit chilled myself from my short dunking. You're just chilled through." He grabbed McKay's body and pulled him up against his own until the scientist's back was resting against Sheppard's chest.

They sat that way in silence for a little while as Sheppard tried to rub some heat into McKay's chest. At first, McKay's shivering only intensified, but as they sat there, it slowly subsided to just a constant tremble.

"How ya doing, buddy?" Sheppard asked after a while.

"Still cold," McKay grumbled, but the stutter seemed to have left again. "Head hurts, dizzy, tired as hell, but still here."

Sheppard had to give a slight smile. "Good to hear."

"Anything to eat or drink?" McKay asked.

Sheppard sighed; he knew that part of the trembles weren't so much the cold as his hypoglycemia kicking in. He had been in the water for close to ten hours and Sheppard didn't know how long they had been knocked out or how long it had been that McKay had eaten before they had left Atlantis. They had been on P3X-878 for nearly an hour before the bullets had started flying.

And then there was the issue of dehydration. McKay had been in salt water for ten hours. He didn't know how badly that could affect hydration of the human body, but it couldn't be a good thing.

"No, I'm sorry, buddy. He took my rations too."

"Figures," Rodney snorted. A violent shudder suddenly ran through his body that caused him to gasp.

Sheppard held him tight until it passed and then asked, "I know you're pretty beat, Rodney, but you think you can walk now?"

McKay sighed, "Yeah, sure, why not? I've only been half drowned and am about to slip into a hypoglycemic coma… what's a short trek to the gate going to do to me?"

"That's the spirit," Sheppard quipped as he wrapped the blanket tightly around McKay and helped him to sit up without leaning against Sheppard. "Stay there a minute," Sheppard said as he got up and scrambled back into his own clothes. They had dried some, but were still slightly damp.

He then made sure that both of their TAC vests were packed up again before he returned to McKay's side. He was a little startled to see McKay's head leaning down on his chest with his eyes closed.

"McKay!" he snapped, startling the man from his doze.

"Damn it, Sheppard," he gasped as he looked around wildly for a moment and met his friend's worried eyes. "I'm tired; can't you leave me for just a couple of minutes?"

"No, I can't," Sheppard said firmly. "And you know it. Now, let's get you dressed so we can get out of here."

"Yeah, so we can just go through all this again on some other planet."

"It's that or wait around to be blown up with the gate. Unless you have a better idea."

"No, not right now," Rodney sighed as he accepted Sheppard's help to stand and then get back into his now mostly dried clothes.

Once he was dressed, he looked down at his feet rather forlornly and Sheppard realized that McKay didn't have any shoes on. "Sorry," McKay muttered. "I kicked them off in the water… too much work to swim."

"We'll I was planning on helping you out anyway. I know that you probably have to be stiff as hell as it is. I'll take most of your weight for you," Sheppard said as he came over as he pulled McKay's arm over his shoulders and grabbed his friend around the waist.

They had hobbled like that a few steps when McKay muttered, "I haven't been much help on this one."

"Not yet, no. But that's not exactly your fault," Sheppard told him.

"I couldn't climb out… got myself pretty messed up because of that, made you come find me and haul me out and now you're practically carrying me back to the gate."

"Hey, you would have had to climb a hell of a lot further than I did when I got there and you didn't have anything to help you. And even then, the chain wouldn't have been long enough for you to get out. You did a great job just keeping above the water, Rodney. I'm proud of you."

McKay was silent again for a while, a condition that Sheppard didn't like from his friend. At least, not when he was like this. A silent McKay meant something was wrong. "You should have left me," McKay said very softly after some time.

Sheppard sighed in frustration and said, "We're not going to go through this again are we?"

"No, I guess it doesn't matter now," Rodney grumbled. "Let's just get off this rock and see what new wonders await us."

"You don't know that we won't be able to dial Atlantis," Sheppard replied.

Rodney snorted, "You think that whoever this bastard is will be willing to just let us go as soon as we pass this little sadistic test? Pretty sure that whoever this is probably wants to make our lives miserable until we're dead."

"We don't know…"

"Would you have found me if I didn't have the life signs detector?" Rodney suddenly interrupted Sheppard.

"I don't know, and that's not the point, McKay."

"Yes it is," McKay argued. "Why bother taking our food and water but leaving the LSD? It was a tactical advantage to our current situation but we can survive for a while without food or water. He's toying with us Sheppard."

Sheppard frowned. "So what, you want to stay here and get blown up then?"

"What I want is to find out who this bastard is and wring his neck right before I eat, shower and then sleep for the next three days. But that's probably not going to be on the list anytime soon."

Sheppard decided to just let the matter drop. They were making decent time back to the gate so hopefully they could get out of there fairly soon. McKay was still far too cold for his liking and his trembles hadn't stopped or diminished in the least. In fact, John was fairly sure that they probably had gotten a bit worse.

He may be communicating better, but Sheppard could still see the glazed look in Rodney's eyes and he knew that the scientist's normally sharp mind was moving far slower than normal. In fact, Sheppard was pretty sure the only reason that Rodney was currently even able to argue with him is because he was only using information that he had worked out earlier. He was stuck with just what he had before the hypothermia and hypoglycemia as well as dehydration and possibly a concussion had set in. Everyone one of those things could slow thinking and cause confusion. For McKay to be dealing with all four at once didn't bode well for how quickly he was going to be able to repair the DHD.

He increased their pace slightly, hoping to give them a bit more than the allotted time of an hour to get the gate working again. He didn't much care for the thought of going to somewhere like or maybe even worse than this place, but he liked the idea of getting blown up even less.

"Sheppard, I gotta stop a minute," McKay gasped.

Sheppard glanced at McKay and saw pain lines all over his face. He was flushed and sweating and the trembles had increased again. "Okay, just for a minute," Sheppard relented, feeling horrible about pushing his friend so hard.

He stopped and then slowly lowered McKay to the ground. He took another step and then sank down beside his friend. Rodney was sprawled across the rocks staring up at the clouds overhead while Sheppard simply sat there, keeping an eye on Rodney.

"I hope you're not going to need much from me at the next stop," Rodney muttered in a disconnected voice. "I can barely focus as is it now."

"If I didn't think I'd need you, I would have left you in that hole," Sheppard replied, hoping to get a rise out of his friend.

But Rodney just kept staring blankly at the sky above. "McKay?" Sheppard asked, feeling something wasn't right. There was no response. He shifted again and then noticed that McKay's eyes had drifted closed. "Rodney!" Sheppard snapped, grabbing his shoulder and giving it a shake. And still there was nothing from him.

"Damn it Rodney! I told you no sleeping yet!" He yelled as he shook his friend a bit harder.

McKay's eyes fluttered open and looked up at Sheppard. "Jesus McKay, don't scare me like that," Sheppard snapped, trying to diffuse some of the nervous energy that he had just acquired.

"Sorry," McKay slurred but Sheppard could see that he didn't know what he was apologizing for.

"Oh no, Rodney. You have to snap out of it, buddy. I need you to concentrate."

Two confused blue orbs continued to stare back at Sheppard. "Damn it, McKay, snap out of it! That's an order!"

Rodney blinked and then muttered, "Can't order… civilian."

Sheppard let out a slight sigh of relief at those words. "Yeah, a civilian under my command," Sheppard told him as he stood up and grabbed McKay's hand. He hauled the weary man to his feet and quickly resumed his position of support.

McKay groaned in protest at the change in position. "You live to torture me, don't you?" he muttered as Sheppard began their march again.

"Yes, McKay. My life is incomplete unless you are miserable."

"Thought so."

XXX

Both John and Rodney practically collapsed at the base of the DHD when they got there. Rodney curled up and was looking like he was going to go to sleep when John looked over and said, "Oh no, we don't have time for that right now."

Rodney groaned as he struggled to sit up just under the DHD. Sheppard noticed that, even though it appeared that Rodney was no longer shivering, his hands were shaking uncontrollably. John watched a moment as the scientist fumbled with the panel to the inner workings of the DHD before he came over and placed his hands over Rodney's. "Let me do it," he said gently as he pulled McKay's hands away and then set to work at prying the cover off.

"Thought you needed me," Rodney grumbled.

"I do. But it looks like you need my hands. You suggested talking me through this before. Now it will be a bit better with you being able to see what's going on."

Rodney sighed as he blinked a few times and mumbled, "Yeah, not much better in that department either."

John glanced back at his friend and noticed that he was having difficulty focusing his eyes. That was not a good sign. "Ok, where do I start?" he asked.

McKay hesitated a moment before clasping his hands to either side of his head and let out a growl of frustration. "Damn it's hard to think... Ok, pull out control crystal rack."

"Um, this one?" Sheppard asked as he reached inside and touched a part. Rodney blinked a few times as he stared into the devise and shook his head, "No, pull that out and you'll create a feedback loop that will probably kill you. The one next to it...no the other side, yes that one!"

Sheppard bit back his frustration with McKay, realizing that right now he wasn't in top form. Of course he was pretty sure that even if he was he would be just as infuriating.

"Alright, let me see," McKay said as he leaned forward to examine the crystals. "I think..." he muttered and then shook his head to clear it. "They're out of order... But I can't... can't remember... Urgh!" he turned away in frustration, grabbing his head again and pulling his eyes closed.

"Take it easy, McKay!" Sheppard ordered. "Just breathe, concentrate. You know this stuff."

"I would," a pitiful moan sounded behind his hands. "If my head wasn't spinning and I didn't have a wad of cotton where my brains normally are."

Sheppard took a deep breath and glanced at his watch, twenty minutes... no pressure there. McKay could do this in seconds... if he was thinking clearly.

"You remember when we had to deal with the Kirsen Fever thing?"

"What?" McKay asked he looked up at Sheppard again, clearly not following where he was going with this.

"The Fever where we all forgot everything?" he asked.

Rodney gave a short, humorless laugh... "Yeah, I remember forgetting; what about it?"

"Teyla said that she had to remind you that you're a scientist... that that was what you would hold on to the longest because it's what important to you."

"Yeah... yeah, I think I remember that."

"She's right, McKay... this is something that you shouldn't even need to think about. How many times have you fiddled with the inside of one of these things? You know where everything is supposed to go."

McKay's eyes raked back and forth over Sheppard's face for a moment before he nodded and then looked at the crystals again. "That one to the back, this one the middle..." he began to direct Sheppard. "No, not there, back one, yes, there. Switch those two and then those two..." John looked up at Rodney and saw that he was hesitating again.

"Rodney?"

"I...I think that's it."

John sighed. He figured that the actually fixing of the DHD would be fairly easy. What he hadn't brought up yet was something that he was pretty sure would be much more complicated. He glanced at his watch, fifteen minutes. No harm in trying, he figured.

"All right, good job, McKay... now, can you tell if it is locked into a certain address?"

McKay stared at him a moment and frowned. "I could, if I had my data pad to interface to it. If it is tampered with like that, all I would have to do is interface with that crystal,"  
he pointed to a larger one in front, "and pull up the information. I could probably even reprogram it to go where we want it to. But without an interface, there's nothing I can do."

"An interface..." Sheppard pondered.

He reached over then and pulled something out of one of Rodney's vest pockets. "How about this?" he asked as he held up the LSD.

"That?" Rodney asked incredulously and then he seemed to get that old McKay spark as he actually thought about it. He reached out and tried to snatch it from Sheppard's hand, but his shaking fingers missed, nearly knocking it to the ground. "Damn it," he exclaimed.

"I take it you have an idea..." Sheppard said with a smile as he grasped the devise firmly again and held it up for McKay to clearly see.

"An idea, yes..." he said. He sighed then as his features sagged and he said, "But it would take far too long to adjust it properly and I would only be able to pull up the information. There's no way I could change anything, not with the memory space on that thing. It just wasn't meant to work like that."

Sheppard glanced at the watch again. Thirteen minutes.

"Ok, how about just finding out where we're about to go?"

"Didn't you hear me?" McKay snapped at him. "There is not enough time to set it up."

"Come on, McKay, twelve and a half minutes is plenty of time for you."

He shook his and replied, "No, it's not… not in this instance. Besides, what good will the address be? I seriously doubt that it'll be anywhere that we're familiar with."

Sheppard sighed in frustration as he tucked the scanner back into his own vest. "Well, I guess all that's left is to dial," he said as he stood up and stared at the DHD.

"Might as well try Atlantis…" McKay muttered as he leaned back against the DHD. "Never know…"

"How about Alpha site? If it's been tampered with, it might be recording dial outs."

"Yeah… yeah, sounds good," was the breathy response.

Sheppard quickly punched in the Alpha site's address and then activated the Stargate. There was a big splash and then he was looking at the wormhole event horizon. "Well, I guess we're just going to have to take a look," Sheppard said as he looked down at McKay.

His eyes were closed as his breathing was shallow and rapid. "McKay!" Sheppard called as he leaned over and grabbed his shoulder. Nothing…

"Damn it," Sheppard said, looking at his watch again. Just under ten minutes. He leaned down and lifted a now semi conscious McKay off of the ground and onto his shoulder.

He heard a half-hearted protest from the scientist but it was clear that, right now, McKay wasn't going anywhere under his own power. Sheppard staggered to the gate with his burden and paused just at the edge of the puddle. He took a deep breath, sent a silent plea to the universe, and then plunged through.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thanks once again for the reviews and the interest that you've all shown in my story. I really love the encouragement.

This chapter is on the long side. That's kind of what happens when you write it all in one shot. It's hard to find good breaking points sometimes. As a result, this chapter is long and the next one is actually pretty short so I'll probably post them close together.

Please read and review and thanks again!

Chapter 3

Sheppard staggered out the other side of the gate and was immediately hit with a wave of heat. His first breath told him that the air wasn't very pleasant to breathe as it slightly burned down his throat and into his lungs. It was dark overhead with a reddish glow all around and they were standing on a rocky ledge.

Sheppard took a couple of steps further and bent over, leaning McKay against a large rock. His eyes were closed again. His breathing was still rapid and when Sheppard reached to take his pulse, he found it just as quick and disconcerting.

Sheppard stood up and looked around for the first time. He took a couple of steps towards where the rocky ledge ended and peered out. Fifty feet below, was a plain of lava. That explained the fumes and the heat. Great…

"Shhe…" McKay muttered.

Sheppard looked back at his friend and saw his head lulling side to side as if he were struggling to bring himself around again.

"McKay?" Sheppard asked as he quickly closed the distance between them. He bent over and reached towards McKay's arm when suddenly his eye lids flew open in sudden fear. He grabbed a hold of Sheppard's arm and was suddenly squeezing him as his blue eyes bore into Sheppard's with a silent plea for help.

"Rod…" but that was as far as Sheppard got before suddenly McKay's muscles all seemed to clench, throwing him back against the rock just before his body was wracked with spasms of a seizure.

"Rodney!" Sheppard called grabbing a hold of McKay, trying to keep him from hurting himself as he thrashed uncontrollably. "Shit, Rodney, hold on," Sheppard spoke as he was consumed with fear for his suffering friend. He was so helpless in this situation and it was killing him to see McKay like this.

What felt like an eternity, though really it was probably just under a minute, the spasms slowed and then stopped all together, leaving both men gasping. "Rodney?" Sheppard said as he gently reached out and took McKay's pulse again. It was even faster than before and his breathing was fast and labored as well.

"Oh god…" Sheppard heard McKay whisper but there wasn't much else that he seemed to be able to communicate.

_Seizure…_ Sheppard though. _Could be the head injury, but it was probably that his hypoglycemia was reaching an all time low. Reaching seizure state meant that a coma wasn't far away._

"Crap," Sheppard said as he looked around at his new surroundings. Suddenly he spied another large rock on the other side of the gate that had some items on top of it. "I need to check something out, Rodney," he told McKay as he pried his arm free from the crushing grip that had never let up even during the throws of the seizure.

"Don't…leave…" McKay mumbled.

"I'm just going to be a few steps away. I'm not going to leave you, got it?"

But there wasn't a response as McKay's breathing became more ragged. "Damn it," Sheppard said in frustration as he stood up and quickly strode over to where he had seen something.

The first items that caught his eye were two wrapped power bars. Sheppard snatched them up and was about to quickly bring them over to McKay before he noticed that there was also a water bottle and another devise like what had given Sheppard the recorded message on the last planet.

He grabbed both of these items as well and returned to McKay's side.

"Hey, McKay!" he called as he gently cradled McKay's neck in his hand and rolled the man towards him "McKay, looks like you're right, someone doesn't want us dead just yet." He used his teeth to tear open a power bar. He struggled to lift Rodney up with his other arm, supporting him half upright against his knees. "Rodney, come on, wake up for me. I've got something for you to eat."

McKay's face twitched slightly, but he couldn't quite drag himself back to consciousness.

"Damn it," Sheppard muttered as he tried to think how he could possibly get the life saving energy bar into his barely conscious friend. "You're not going to like this, buddy," Sheppard finally said as he took a bite from the bar himself and began to chew. He added a small amount of water from the bottle to his mouth until it was fairly liquefied.

Reaching down, he forced McKay's mouth open and then leaned down, transferring the power bar mush into his friend's mouth. As Sheppard leaned back, he closed McKay's mouth. The scientist gave a half cough. "Swallow it, McKay," Sheppard said as if he were delivering an order.

He was rewarded with seeing Rodney's throat work as he swallowed the mess of power bar that Sheppard had just given him. "Good job, buddy," Sheppard said as he set to pre-chewing another dose. A moment later he was baby bird feeding his injured friend a second time. This time McKay was already swallowing it even before Sheppard had shut his mouth again.

"Wha…" McKay muttered after he had swallowed. His eyes fluttered open and looked up at Sheppard.

"Hey, buddy," Sheppard said as relief flooded through his body. "Think you can manage this on your own now?" He placed the partially eaten bar into McKay's hand. McKay blinked and eyed it a moment.

"Do I even want to know what just happened?" Rodney rasped. Sheppard just shook his head and nodded towards the rest of the power bar. McKay, for once, let it drop as the power bar far more important at the moment.

Sheppard had expected him to devour it instantly, but he was taking his time, chewing it as if he barely had the energy to even do that much. Sheppard considered chewing it for him again, but knew there was no way McKay would allow that now that he was far more conscious of what was going on.

Sheppard slipped the other bar into one of his vest pockets, careful to not let McKay notice its presence. He had no intention of eating it himself, but he knew that he was going to have to ration it out for his friend and the easiest way to do that was to pretend that there was nothing else to give him at the moment.

Now that McKay was quietly munching on his own now, Sheppard began to look around again. The Stargate was right next to them, but there seemed to be a lack of DHD. So another trap then… great.

He picked the recorder up from the ground and eyed it, wondering if he dared to play it. The last one said that playing it was what armed the bomb on the last planet. But if he didn't play it, then he wasn't going to know what their current predicament was. As it looked right now, they were trapped on a rocky ledge, surrounded by a sea of lava without any means of activating the Stargate. He needed intel, but was it worth the possible cost?

"Whe?" McKay croaked, cleared his throat and tried again, "Where are we?"

"Not sure of the details yet," Sheppard replied as he looked down and saw that McKay had finally finished off the power bar. "Far as I can tell, we're surrounded by lava with a useless Stargate." He looked back at the recorder, still considering the options.

"God I'm thirsty," McKay muttered as he struggled to sit up. Sheppard quickly helped to support him before placing the water bottle in his hand. "Easy with that," Sheppard said, indicating the bottle. "Far as I can tell, that's all we get."

McKay stared at the bottle as if it was one of the greatest mysteries in the universe. "Where the hell…?"

"That and the power bar were sitting over there with this," Sheppard said, giving the recorder a wave in from of McKay.

"What's that?" he asked as he reached for it.

Sheppard pulled it out of his reach and said, "It's a recorder like the one that our courteous host left me on the last planet."

"Well what does he have to say this time?" McKay asked as he crossed his arms.

"Don't know yet. Haven't played it. I was kind of hoping I wouldn't have to since last time it was what also triggered the countdown on the Stargate bomb."

"What are we going to do?" McKay asked as panic began to edge into his voice again.

"We're not going to panic, Rodney," Sheppard told him calmly. "And then I think I'm going to play this little message and see what the deal is."

McKay looked on in fear as Sheppard pressed the 'play' button while simultaneously hitting a button on his watch.

"Congratulations on making it this far," the same distorted voice spoke from the devise. "Though, I have to wonder if both of you are there to listen to this. I hope you enjoyed the small reward that I left you for making it here. Now, if you haven't already noticed, your Stargate has no dialing devise. That's because this is a secondary gate. The main Stargate with its accompanying dialing devise are about five miles west of you."

Sheppard looked around, but there was no way to determine which direction was which on the alien world.

"On the other side of your Stargate, behind the rocks, you'll see the remains of a city that once was here. "There's not much left, but it seems that the metal that they used to frame their buildings is quite resilient and was survived even through the lava flows that have swept this part of the planet."

Sheppard got up then and walked around the rocks behind the gate and got his first look at what the voice was talking about.

"Cross the five miles of framework, and you'll find the gate that will lead you off this planet. Once again, listening to the message has started your timer. The other gate will now detonate in exactly four hours from when you activated the recording. Good luck."

Sheppard tossed the recorder to the ground in disgust as he stared at what their captor expected them on which to cross a five mile lava plain. Beams of a strange bluish metal crisscrossed over the plain. It was almost as if the entire city had been early been one large connected unit. There were what appeared to be more rock outcroppings like the one they were currently on interspersed along the way, but for the most part, it was going to be a balancing act to get across.

"Sheppard?" McKay asked from where he was still sitting on the ground.

Sheppard looked back at his friend and saw how exhausted and scared he was. He put on a fake smile and said, "It shouldn't be too difficult." He glanced at his watch. "I think that we could afford to rest for an hour before heading out."

"Sheppard, I can't get up to look right now, but I know you're lying to me. Tell me the truth." McKay had that dogged look to him that meant he was not going to rest, no matter how much he needed it, until he had the answers he wanted.

Sheppard sighed and then sat on the ground next to McKay. "It's not going to be easy, but we can do it. You just need to rest a while first is all."

"Yeah," Rodney snorted. "Rest for a week and have a much bigger meal than a single power bar and a few sips of water. Who do you think I am, Sheppard? Ronon? I just had a god damn seizure less than fifteen minutes ago!"

Sheppard shook his head, "I know, Rodney, and if there was any way that I could get you medical help or spare you from this jaunt across a lava plain, I would. If it would get us both out of this, I'd cross the damn thing myself. But you know perfectly well I am not leaving you behind so if you don't want to strand me on this hunk of rock for the next…" he glanced at his watch again. "Three hours, fifty four minutes, and thirty two seconds, then you're going to have to deal with it."

McKay stared at him a moment and said, "That was a very specific time, Sheppard."

"I thought that it might trigger our clock again so I set my watch as I played the recording," Sheppard responded.

McKay glared at him a moment before shaking his head and saying, "I know I should be yelling at you about setting the countdown, but I don't have the energy." He took another swallow from the water bottle and then sat it on the ground next to him. "Wake me when we have to leave," he said and then curled up on the ground. Within seconds, Sheppard heard his soft snoring, signaling that he was finally able to sleep like he so desperately needed.

XXX

Groggy, sore, thirsty, and famished, McKay awoke an hour later to Sheppard's insistent shaking and calling his name far too close to his ear for comfort.

"'M 'wake," he grumbled as he tried to nudge Sheppard away from him. Unfortunately, his arms were too stiff and sore to move in that manner. He let out a low groan as his muscles protested the movement.

"McKay, you all right?" Sheppard's worried voice asked as he gripped McKay's shoulder a little tighter.

"Said, 'm up," McKay replied grumpily as he finally managed to open his eyes and roll from his side to his back. "And of course I'm not all right," he snapped now that he was looking directly up at Sheppard. "I'm sore, hungry, thirsty, and hot. How can I possibly be all right?"

Sheppard gave a half smile as he replied, "Well, at least we have been able to scratch hypothermia off the list of ailments."

"Ha, ha," McKay jeered back even as Sheppard snaked an arm behind his back and forced him upright before he could do anything about it.

"Whoa," McKay gasped as he grabbed his head with one hand.

"McKay?"

"Just… just give me a minute," he said breathily as he waved his other hand at Sheppard shakily. "You pulled me up a bit fast."

"Sorry, buddy," Sheppard said with a frown. He was used to ignoring McKay's complaints of ailment and just forcing the scientist to suck it up and deal. But right now, McKay was not exaggerating. He was in bad shape and probably shouldn't have been forced up that quickly.

"It's… it's ok," McKay muttered as he slowly lowered his hand and looked up. "Just a little head rush, I'll be fine."

"You sure?"

McKay scowled at him and said, "Relatively speaking of course. Nothing about this situation is fine. But yeah, I'm good. Help me up." He held his hand out to Sheppard.

Sheppard, suppressing another frown, stood up and took McKay's hand. This time he didn't yank McKay off the ground like he normally would, but gently lifted him up. McKay still stumbled forward as soon as his feet were under him, causing Sheppard to have to brace him.

"Easy," Sheppard told him. "I got ya."

"Yeah… just… god, I don't want to complain but this hurts!" McKay gasped as he struggled to get his weary legs to support him.

"I know. Between the lovely swim and that seizure, your muscles are probably rocks right now. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to work through it."

McKay sighed but nodded slowly as he gently pulled himself from Sheppard's arms until he was standing on his own. Sheppard didn't like the grimace on his face but he exchanged a quick nod with McKay and then turned and led him to the other side of the gate.

McKay paused and took a breath at the sight that greeted him. Whatever city had been there before must have been massive. But now, all that remained were the metal framings of the builds, ranging as far as he could see. Far below, the sea of molten lava spanned just as far.

"You have to be kidding me," McKay muttered.

Sheppard turned and frowned at him. "I know it looks pretty daunting, but it's not impossible. We'll just take it slow and easy and make our way across. There are other rock formations like this one that we will be able to stop and rest at."

"You're insane," McKay said as he continued to stare at the staggering sight in front of him.

Sheppard sighed and then said, "Come here and put these on," as he indicated a rock for McKay to sit on and a pair of boots sitting beside the rock.

"You fished my boots out?" McKay asked confused as he sat down as instructed and reached for the nearest foot ware.

"No, they're mine."

McKay glanced over and saw that Sheppard was standing in his socks. "Why the hell am I putting on _your_ boots?" McKay demanded.

"Because you lost yours and the metal over there is pretty hot."

McKay blanched a little as he realized what Sheppard was saying. Still, he swallowed back his fear and set the boot back on the ground and said, "Then you shouldn't be giving them up. They're your boots, you wear them. Besides, who knows what kind of foot fungus you'll give me if I wear your boots?"

"Damn it, McKay," Sheppard snapped. "Put on the damn boots! You're in far worse shape than I am. The last thing you need right now is another injury to deal with. I can handle a little heat."

McKay sighed in frustration as he bent over and started pulling off his socks. "Fine," he said. "But you're at least going to add my socks to yours. It might not be much, but it is at least another layer."

Sheppard couldn't help but grin slightly at what he was seeing. Who ever thought that Rodney McKay might actually think about another's safety before his own? He relented and sat down on the rock next to McKay. After he finished putting on the second layer of socks, Sheppard reached into his vest while McKay finished lacing the boots. "Here," he said holding something out to McKay. "No arguments on this, you're taking these."

McKay tied the second lace and then saw Sheppard handing him the same gloves that he had used to climb out of the hole on the last planet. "Gloves?" McKay asked as he took them from Sheppard. "It hardly seems the weather for them here."

"Just wait until you're gripping those metal struts," Sheppard replied as he shucked off his vest and then pulled his tee-shirt off.

"Hey, wait," McKay said as he was about to hand the gloves back but was surprised by Sheppard's action. "What…?"

Suddenly Sheppard was ripping his shirt in half and then tore each half in half. He tossed one of the strips to McKay. "Tie that around your face. The fumes are going to be stronger over the lava."

"Sheppard, what the hell…?" He watched as Sheppard wound a strip around each of his hands and then tied the third one around his head, just over his nose before putting his vest back on over his now bare chest.

McKay finally managed to put it all together and then proceeded to do as he was told. After securing the face mask, he put on the gloves saying, "I don't see why you think that I need both the boots and gloves."

"I told you already, McKay. You're in worse shape than I am and don't need to deal with burns on top of everything else. And trust me, it's out of my own self preservation that I'm making sure you have the best chance to make it across. You're the only one that has a chance of repairing the DHD so that it doesn't just send us onto another hell hole."

McKay sighed and shook his head. "I doubt that I will be able to do anything about that. Not with just an LSD to work with for an interface."

"You'll come up with something by then," Sheppard said with all the confidence in the world as he stood up and then helped McKay to do so as well.

"Your blind faith in me is going to be the death of both of us one of these days," McKay grumbled.

"Well then I won't have to worry about you letting me down again," Sheppard replied. McKay could hear the smirk that he was making behind the cloth. "Now, let's get going."

He walked over to the edge of the rock and looked at the nearest beam for them to get to. It was about a four foot gap. "Oh god," McKay muttered as he came up to stand behind Sheppard. "We haven't even made it onto the beams and I'm already done for."

"It's not that far, McKay," Sheppard said in exasperation. He wanted to be understanding of his friend's condition, but goading McKay on with snark was what he did.

"Says you," McKay replied half-heartedly as he continued to eye the distance.

Sheppard glanced at his watch. Starting out was taking longer than he had hoped for. They needed to start moving now. "You're going first," Sheppard told him.

"Why the hell do I get to go first?" McKay gasped.

"Because I said so. And so I can keep an eye on you to know if and when you're having trouble and so I don't go too fast for you and leave you behind. Are those good enough reasons?"

"Oh, well, yes, actually," McKay replied a little stunned that Sheppard didn't leave the answer with, 'because I said so.'

He turned then and judged the distance one more time, closed his eyes, swallowed and then opened them again before taking that leap. His foot landed firmly on the beam as his hand wrapped around the vertical strut. He teetered a moment as he almost reflexively released his hold on the strut when the heat radiated through his gloved hand. He wasn't able to stifle the surprised yelp though that that heat produced.

"McKay?" Sheppard asked as his heart nearly skipped a beat when he say McKay wobble for a moment.

"Hot doesn't begin to cover it, Sheppard," McKay snapped back but he continued to grip the strut with all of his being as he looked down to the field of lava far below him with only a narrow beam supporting him from it.

Sheppard sighed. He knew that it was going to be hot. He knew it was going to be uncomfortable to say the least, but that was the least of his concerns. "McKay?" he called again as the scientist showed no intention of moving forward.

"I have told you about my problem with heights, right?" McKay's rather high pitched voice came back.

"You may have mentioned it once or twice," Sheppard replied flatly.

"Well now seemed an appropriate time to bring it up again!" His voice was getting higher and edging back into full panic mode.

"McKay, calm down and breathe!" Sheppard ordered. "You have to move forward or I won't be able to get over there with you."

"I don't think that's an option, Colonel."

Sheppard forced himself to calm down again and used his best, keep Rodney from panicking, voice. "Rodney, you see the beam above your head?"

It was obvious that it took a tremendous amount of will power for the scientist to pull his eyes off of the drop below him to look above his head. When he finally did, he only glanced hurriedly before returning to stare at the lava as if he feared taking his eyes off it would allow it to rush up and meet him.

"Yes, so what?" he snapped in reply.

"It's low enough that you can grab it to help keep yourself steady as you go," Sheppard explained to him. "If you keep a grip on that, even if your feet slip, you won't fall."

McKay's vision darted back up at the higher beam and then down again. "I… I don't think…"

"Rodney!" Sheppard had enough with Mr. nice calm guy. It was time to switch back into commander mode. "Neither of us are getting off of this planet if you don't take a step! Now stop looking down and keep your eyes on the beam above you and get a move on it!"

"Right," McKay said. "Right," he muttered even softer as he finally pulled his eyes back to the overhead beam. He peeled his left hand away from the strut that he was clinging to and slowly reached up and gripped the higher beam. He steadied himself a moment before releasing the strut with his other hand and quickly grabbed the other side of the beam.

Sheppard was already exhausted for McKay just watching him strain to rein in his fears and the pain and weakness that he was already in as he tried to will himself to take that first step. It was only a second later that he finally put his right foot forward and shuffled away from the edge of the structure.

"All right, good job, Rodney," Sheppard encouraged as McKay took another step. Sheppard got right near the edge of the rocky ledge and prepared to jump across as soon as McKay had moved far enough down to allow him room. It was only a moment later that he was easily standing on the beam.

He saw McKay flinch at the sound of his sudden hiss of pain. He knew that the metal was going to be hot and that his protection was not as complete as McKay's. Still, the sudden burst of heat transferred through his double layers of socks and the thin wrapping of the ripped tee-shirt on his hands hadn't dampened the affect as much as he had hoped.

"Sheppard?" McKay called from where he was. He started to turn his head but a sudden bout of vertigo convinced him it would be better to keep his eyes on that upper beam.

"It's all right, Rodney. My finger just slipped out of the wrap. Don't worry about me; just keep moving as quickly as you can."

"Yeah, right, just keep up the balance beam act," he replied with a sigh and then continued forward. "You know," he said after a little while. "This gives a whole new definition to death defying stunt, don't you think? I mean, sure, you can go to the circus and watch some clown walk across a tightrope without a net. But I don't ever see them suspended over a sea of molten lava," he gave a short hysterical laugh.

"Clowns don't walk the tight-rope," Sheppard said adamantly.

"Oh yeah, sorry, forgot that you don't like them much," McKay replied, without sounding the least bit sorry. "Why is that anyway? I mean, how can something as mundane and innocuous as a clown scare the great John Sheppard? You don't even flinch at the sight of a Wraith yet the mention of a clown gets you all worried."

"I don't know; I just don't like them is all," Sheppard replied. He broke his own advice then and looked down below. It was a long way down but heights had never been an issue for him. The problem was if the fall didn't kill, then the melted rock below certainly would. Being burned alive was almost as high on his fears list as clowns.

"How can you not know why you hate clowns?" McKay persisted.

"Do you know where all your fears stem from?" Sheppard parried.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. The majority of them stem from the fact that the things I fear actually cause death!" McKay shot back. "Last I checked, clowns aren't very high on that death causing list."

"You never watched _Killer Klowns from Outspace_ then," he muttered.

"Did so," McKay replied without missing a beat. "And if something as awfully B as that movie is where your fear of clowns comes from, I have some serious questions about your judgment skills."

"Yes, because we know that the great Rodney McKay has perfect judgment. Let's just take a trip of to Doranda and see how it's doing… oh wait…"

"Just remember who signed off on that mission, Colonel," McKay replied, surprising Sheppard. Any other time that Sheppard had ever brought that incident up he was immediately met with either hostility or sudden guilt. This time it seemed as if it was now something so casual that it wasn't the conversation stopper that he had previously used it as. Somewhere along the way McKay had either accepted the incident or had decided to at least not let it bother him anymore. Either that, or the scientist was just too caught up in his argument to let something like that take him off track.

And then suddenly Sheppard understood where this whole fears rant was stemming from. McKay needed something to distract him from the current situation. It was a very sobering thought that the memory of what had happened on Doranda was an acceptable distraction to what McKay was currently going through.

"McKay, how you doing?" Sheppard asked.

"What a stupid question," the response came. "Take a look around you, Colonel; it doesn't get much better than this. If that Stargate wasn't going to explode and destroy everything, I would consider coming back here and building a summer home!" He was passing out of friendly bickering into full out anger.

"Hey, McKay, calm down," Sheppard said. "Yeah I know, seems like a pretty stupid question right now. But you need to let me know if you're about to pass out or anything. I can't help you, if you don't let me know these things and I know you're not going to tell me unless I ask."

Sheppard heard a deflated sigh from in front of him before McKay responded in a more subdued voice. "Look, I'm sorry. I know you're just trying to help. But right now, even if I were about to keel over, there's not much you can do up here. I just have to keep my mind off of where I'm at or I won't be able to keep walking."

"Ok then, why didn't you say so?" Sheppard said with a false smile. "One thousand two hundred and ninety nine."

"What?" McKay asked, clearly confused what Sheppard was talking about.

"Come on McKay, you know our favorite game. Prime not prime. 1299…"

"Not prime," came the immediate response. "And you know this isn't going to be nearly as fun without Ronon to annoy with it."

"Humor me," Sheppard said.

McKay sighed and then said, "3957."

"Just because I started you off with an easy one, doesn't mean that you have to do the same. Not prime. 7849."

"Not prime," McKay responded after only a brief pause. But he didn't supply the new number.

"Hey, McKay, you're not done already are you?"

"No… I was just thinking…"

"Yes, that must be new for you," Sheppard said with no small amount of sarcasm. "I can see where you might get a little confused."

"No, really," McKay replied. "I was thinking about the gate."

Sheppard perked up a bit, but kept his voice neutral as he asked, "what about it?"

There was another pause before McKay suddenly launched into a rambling explanation of his thoughts. "Well I still really think that there is going to be no way that I would be able to reprogram the DHD to our own address rather than where ever our anonymous psychopath has chosen given what I have to work with. I mean, yes, given enough time, I probably could come up with something, but I'm talking days, not hours, or more likely, minutes."

"Keep moving this slow and you're looking at seconds if you're lucky," Sheppard told him as he glanced at his watch again. They really were not making very good time. But, to McKay's credit, he seemed to pick up the pace slightly without even breaking stream of consciousness.

"But then I was wondering if maybe there might be another way to change the gate's destination."

"How can you change it without changing the DHD?" Sheppard asked.

"By jumping the gate," McKay replied smugly as if that answered everything.

"Jumping the gate? Like jumping over it? What is that supposed to do?"

"Do you not pay attention to missions that you're not on?" McKay snapped. "Don't you remember when SG-1 came to Pegasus to connect to the Ori super gate?"

"Vaguely. Something about it needed to be called in from another galaxy and they wanted your help on some number crunching or other. I think that's when I meet Colonel Carter, right?"

"Yes, yes, that's when you met Sam. Is that all you remember about all of that? Seriously, don't you pay attention to anything outside of your own little world?"

"Oh yeah, because you're so informed on everything that isn't McKay related," Sheppard scoffed.

"As a matter of fact… tell me, how many of SG-1's mission reports have you read?"

"Hey, just because I didn't have an unhealthy obsession with a certain member of that team, doesn't mean that I don't try to keep track of the world around me."

"I do not… or did not… have an unhealthy obsession with anyone. SG-1 is the flagship team of the SGC and much of our understanding of the universe at large began with things that they encountered and stumbled upon. Reading their mission reports is a very useful aid!"

"Ok, ok," Sheppard relented, not willing to pursue this argument when McKay was close to revealing his masterful plan of how to save the day. "Just, explain to me this… gate jumping thing."

McKay sighed in frustration before he began to explain in a very patronizing manner. "Ok, long story short, SG-1 got separated on a mission in their first year of operation where Dr. Jackson and Teal'c returned to the SGC but Colonel O'Neill and Colonel, then Captain, Carter were sent to a second gate on Earth in the Antarctic."

"Why?" Sheppard asked confused how something like that could happen. He was also rather curious why there had been a second gate on Earth, but decided that that didn't really matter at the moment.

"Because just as Sam and O'Neill entered the event horizon, the gate was struck by some sort of energy weapon. The overload of energy in the matter stream caused it to surge and jump tracks, if you will, to the nearest gate to the original destination."

"Ok, how does that help us?" Sheppard asked.

"Well we could do something similar. If a burst of energy was introduced to the matter stream immediately after or just as we enter the gate, then we'll be sent to the nearest gate to where ever we were supposed to be sent."

Sheppard was silent for a while as he mulled this over. "Ok, I can see several problems with this plan but I'll start with the obvious one. How the hell are we supposed to do that?"

McKay was silent a moment before he spoke again. This time is was in his 'Please believe me even though this sounds crazy,' voice. "The way that we were able to get the gate to jump to connect to the Ori Super gate was by using a massive explosion on our end of the gate."

It only took a few moments to put together what McKay was suggesting. "Are you saying that you want to use the gate exploding on this planet to jump the matter stream while we're in it?"

"That's the idea, yes."

Sheppard took a deep breath and tried to steady his nerves before he started speaking again. "Of all the irrational, convoluted, suicidal plans that you have come up with combined with all of mine, I have never heard of something so insane as that!" Obviously he didn't do a very good job at calming down before speaking.

"It will work!" McKay snapped back. But then he added in a softer voice, "assuming we time it right."

"Yes, exactly! What if we wait a half second too long? We could wind up blowing up right along with the gate!"

"Yes, yes, I am well aware of that. If we go too early, then we'll end up where we were supposed to be in the first place and if we go too late but ahead of the blast, we'll be stuck inside the gate system until our patterns are erased by the first connecting wormhole to that gate. I understand the risks."

"Wait a second…" Sheppard said. "What was that third option? Did you say that we just wouldn't come out?"

"Ah, yeah… it was another SG-1 mission. Um, one where I first met Sam, actually, where Teal'c got trapped in the gate after the gate on his side was destroyed a millisecond after he had stepped through."

Sheppard didn't like the sound of McKay's voice as he explained that one. If it was when he had met Sam, then he had to have been there to try and fix the problem. But McKay sounded very much like he used to when talking about Doranda as he explained this incident.

It was something that he planned on asking about when they got back. But first he had to make sure that his geek didn't get them both killed before he could do that. "No, Rodney," he said firmly.

"No? What do you mean, 'No'!"

"Exactly as it sounds. We are not going to do something that has more of a risk to fail and kill us then not. You're just going to have to come up with something else."

"Something else?" McKay snapped as he suddenly came to a halt. Sheppard was shocked as McKay suddenly turned around on the beam as if he wasn't scared out of his mind of falling, and stared at Sheppard. His face was flushed and covered in sweat and his eyes had gotten that glassy look again. Walking behind him, Sheppard hadn't been able to tell that McKay had gotten this bad again.

"Something else?" he repeat at a higher pitch as he yanked the cloth down from his face to hang from his neck. "There is nothing else, Sheppard. You told me that you wanted me to, and I quote, 'come up with something.' Now I came up with something and you want something else! How many miracle plans do you think I can come up with in one day? In just a couple of hours at that? I'm hot, I'm exhausted, I haven't ate more than a single power bar in nearly twenty four hours… I nearly drowned and went through hypothermia less than two hours ago and you want me to come up with something else after I came up with something!"

"Whoa, McKay…" Sheppard tried to get him to calm down as he carefully let go of the beam over head and took a measured step towards the scientist with his hands up as if surrendering.

But McKay wasn't ready to give up the fight just yet. "No! This is the only option that you are going to get out of me and personally, I don't think this one is your call. I will not, and probably cannot, go through another one of these insane, push us to our limit or die, planets. I would rather take the risk of dying in a massive explosion or simply being lost to the oblivion of the gate system than have to go through all of this again!"

"I get it, McKay… But I don't think…"

"…No you don't! You don't think about how much this is killing me just being up here like this, let alone how close I am to completely collapsing from everything else or how much I… Iaaahee!"

Sheppard watched in horror as McKay released the upper beam in his agitation to start talking with his hands like he normally does. As soon as his grip was released, he swayed in place for a brief second before his right foot slipped off the edge and he began to topple off of the beam.

"McKay!" Sheppard yelled as he leapt forward in the short distance that he had closed between them. He reached out, snagging the back of McKay's TAC vest, with his right hand as the scientist plummeted over the edge. Sheppard landed heavily on the beam on his stomach, arms and legs out to either side. He gripped the beam with his left arm and wound both his legs tightly around it behind him as his right arm was suddenly jarred downward with McKay's weight, threatening to pull him over with him.

Sheppard grunted in pain and effort as McKay dangled below, too stunned and panicked to so much as scream or even move. All Sheppard heard from his precariously positioned friend was rapid, raspy breathing. "McKay," he grunted with the effort of keeping his friend from falling. "McKay," he said again when he didn't get a response. "You have to help me out here, buddy."

"Oh god… oh god… I… I," McKay began to mutter.

"Rodney," Sheppard barked. "Snap out of it. I can't hold you like this forever and I can't exactly pull you up like this either. You have to work with me here."

"Sheppard… oh god, Sheppard, don't let go… please, don't…"

"I'm not going to let you go, Rodney!" Sheppard gasped as he felt his fingers protest in pain from gripping the vest. "But you have to help me bring you back up!"

Finally McKay pried his eyes off of the lava below him and looked up. His terrified blue eyes met Sheppard's and for a moment, John thought that he saw the panic subside ever so much. McKay trusted him, literally with his life. He wasn't sure how much he really deserved that trust, but he was glad that it was enough to get McKay to respond to him.

"Yeah… yeah, ok… what…?"

"Reach up and grab my arm," Sheppard coached him.

He saw McKay swallow hard just before he reached up with is right hand and grabbed Sheppard's arm at the elbow.

"That's it. Now, I'm going to try and pull you up while you pull yourself up. Try to reach with your other hand and get a hold of my vest."

McKay was gasping for breath already and he didn't look like he was in any shape to be doing this kind of physical activity. But there wasn't any other choice. "Count of three, all right?"

McKay swallowed again and nodded. "One, Two, Three!"

With gasps and groans, McKay was able to reach up and grab a hold of the left side of Sheppard's vest. Sheppard had a brief moment of fear as he was forced to let go of McKay's vest was he moved up. If the scientist slipped in that moment, Sheppard was pretty sure that he wouldn't be able to catch him a second time. But McKay maintained his grip as Sheppard reached down and grabbed McKay's leg.

"Keep climbing, buddy," Sheppard coached as he got his hand under McKay's knee and tried to give him something to push off from. A few more adrenaline filled moments later found the two men both sprawled along the beam, head's together, one on his stomach, one on his back, gasping for breath.

"Ok…" McKay panted. "Never… insulting… tightrope walking… clowns… again."

"That was… almost a flying… trapezes act," Sheppard replied as he slowly started to pick himself up from the beam.

McKay didn't have a response as he was too busy gasping for air. "You're going to want to get up from the beam there," Sheppard said as he positioned himself sitting on the beam with his legs dangling over the side.

McKay swallowed and nodded but didn't seem to be able to shift himself without heading towards a panic again. "Ok, buddy," Sheppard said as he saw McKay's muscles twitching to move, but his eyes darting about in terror and his breath hitching again. "Hold still, I'll help you up," he said.

He slid down the beam until his thigh was just touching the top of McKay's head. Keeping one hand on the beam, Sheppard put his other under McKay's head and lifted him up slightly until his head was resting on top of his leg.

McKay slammed his eyes shut and gripped the beam below him with all of his being, holding his body completely rigid. "Come on, McKay. I'm not going to let you fall again. You have to at least relax enough to let me help you. Now, I'm going to try and easy you up by bracing you against me, but you have to bend to do so. Got it?"

McKay licked his dried, cracked lips before he nodded slightly, but didn't open his eyes. Sheppard realized then that McKay had lost his strip of fabric that was supposed to try and filter out some of the harsh chemical air for him. That was something that he would have to address later, however.

Sheppard reached back under his friend and put his hand on McKay's back. As he slid McKay towards, him, he also pushed against the beam with his other hand, sliding his body further under McKay and easing the scientist up his own side.

After several minutes of this, McKay was finally sitting mostly upright, leaning against Sheppard. "You see, not so bad, huh?" Sheppard asked as he looped his arm protectively around McKay's torso.

"S…sorry…" McKay stuttered.

"It's all right, buddy. You're doing great. I've been pushing you too hard and you've put up with it for long enough for a while. We can afford a quick break." Even though he meant most of what he said, Sheppard was still very concerned about their time. They really needed to be moving much faster if they ever expected to make it to the gate in time.

"No… no, that was my fault. I shouldn't have let go… I…"

"You're dehydrated and have low blood sugar," Sheppard told him firmly. "And I wouldn't be surprised if you've gone from hypothermia to heat exhaustion. All those things can mess with your head. This is my fault, McKay… You got that?"

"Yeah… if you say so," McKay said without believing a word of it.

"Here," Sheppard said as he pulled the water bottle off of his belt. He put it in his other hand that was wrapped around McKay and nudged it towards the scientist's hand.

It took McKay a moment to seem to be able to grasp what was being offered him. But he took it with shaky hands and then quickly drank down several gulps of water. He lowered it again and tried to hand it back to Sheppard but he shook his head. "You're not done yet."

"You need some too," McKay croaked.

"I just had some," Sheppard lied.

McKay hesitated and then took one more sip before he capped it again and forced it back into Sheppard's hand. "Still have a ways to go…" he muttered.

Sheppard sighed and nodded. He couldn't argue with that. After securing the now mostly empty water bottle on his belt again, he pulled the last power bar from his vest. He opened it and broke it in half.

"Here, you can have half of mine," he said, even as he shoved the other half back in his vest.

"I thought…" McKay said in confusion as he took it.

"I knew I needed to hide it from you so you wouldn't steal it," Sheppard said.

"I have never stolen your food!" McKay snapped as he angrily took a bite. But he quickly slowed his chewing and ate the half a bar slowly.

"Then why were you holding the empty wrapper?" Sheppard goaded, recalling the Harmony incident.

"Because she…!" But McKay cut off as he realized that Sheppard had long ago figured it out and was only teasing him now to distract him from the situation. "Never mind," he said flatly. "You can let me up now," he said as he pushed himself up from Sheppard. As he moved, he glanced down at the hand that was releasing a grip on him.

"What happened to your hand?" McKay gasped as he grabbed Sheppard's right hand with his own.

Sheppard tugged on his hand slightly to pull it away from McKay's examination, but he was worried that he might overbalance the scientist again when he didn't immediately let go and gave up the fight. "Your fingers are burnt and blistered!" McKay exclaimed as he half turned to look at Sheppard.

That was when he got his first look at man that had just saved his life since the whole incident. "God, John, look at you! What the hell are all of those burns?"

"It's nothing, Rodney," Sheppard said. "It told you, the metal is hot. But it's nothing serious." He had red marks up and down his arms where they had come in contact with the beam when he had grabbed it while pulling McKay up. There was a large red mark on the left side of his face with blisters beginning to rise in places. That must have been where his face brushed against the beam as he first hulled up his friend and then rested there a moment, being spent after the ordeal.

"Oh god, that's my fault, too, isn't it?" McKay said as he took in all of Sheppard's injuries.

"I think we decided that it was entirely my fault, Rodney. Now, if you're ready, we need to move on."

McKay searched Sheppard's face with sad, guilty eyes. Sheppard hated that look. He was the one responsible for both of them; anything that happened was his fault. He didn't need his genius scientist second guessing himself just because he thought he carried the weight of the universe on his shoulders. Sheppard wanted to at least take some of the burden of guilt off of his friend. But Rodney always seemed to find ways to put it back on his own shoulders. He really was egotistical…

"Can we please go?" Sheppard said as he carefully got to his feet again. He grabbed the upper beam with is left hand and then reached down towards McKay with his right. McKay just kept giving him that look but reached up and let Sheppard help him back to his feet.

He swayed for a second as Sheppard helped to keep him stable while he adjusted and turned back around and got a hold of the upper beam again. "Ok, let's keep moving," Sheppard told him. And then they were back on the balance beam routine all over again.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thank you again for you reviews! As promised, you didn't need to wait a week for this one as it is pretty short. Some more whumpiness though! Enjoy!

Chapter 4

Sheppard didn't like McKay's silence. The scientist hadn't said a word since he blamed himself for Sheppard's burns. No amount of goading or teasing from Sheppard had gotten a response from him and that was really worrying the Colonel.

"Come on, McKay. I thought you needed to keep your mind occupied? How about some more prime not prime?"

"I'm busy," McKay finally muttered.

"Busy? You mean this walking thing? Haven't you figured that out yet?"

"Ha, ha… No, I'm busy trying to come up with, 'something else,'" he said.

Sheppard was silent for a moment before he decided that this was probably where he needed to at least try and be delicate with his phrasing. "Ok… I thought that you said that there wasn't anything else?"

"Doesn't mean that you're still not going to ask for it," came a rather acerbic reply.

"And have you come up with, 'something else,' yet?"

"No," McKay sighed. There was a brief pause where Sheppard knew that McKay was gathering his thoughts on the matter before presenting them. "Look, there is simply nothing else that I can do."

Sheppard was a little stunned not so much by the words, but at the tone they were delivered. It was a defeated, guilty tone rather than the angry, agitated tone that he normally used when explaining to Sheppard that there were limits to even his abilities.

McKay continued as Sheppard weighed his friend's tone. "I know that the gate jump thing is incredibly risky. Any number of things could go wrong even besides what we already mentioned. We have no idea where a successful jump will take us. For all we know it could be to a space gate or even to Atlantis."

"Well that would be a nice change," Sheppard said with a smile that McKay's next words quickly crushed.

"Accept we would have already entered the gate before it connected there and wouldn't have sent through our IDC. We'd connect with the shield even before our molecules had a chance to reintegrate. Instant death. Though, granted, I'd prefer that to the space gate thing. Probably take a second or two of decompression to kill us there. Or maybe just a flash freeze… either way, not my choice of death."

"Personally I'd rather avoid it all together."

"You know I would too," McKay said. "But right now, I think the only way to give ourselves a chance at that outcome is to play against the odds and try to jump the gate."

Sheppard realized that McKay was fixated on something again. It was just like Doranda… he thought he saw a solution and it was the only thing that he could see until it literally blew up in his face. But he didn't want to engage in that debate again so he said, "I get it, McKay. I'll think about it for now. We've still got another hour before we have to take that step."

"It's the only option, Sheppard," McKay said flatly but didn't seem to be in the mood to press the issue at the moment either.

And so they trudged on in silence for a while more until they finally came to another rocky ledge. McKay made a wobbly jump onto it before falling over. Sheppard didn't bother to wait for him to move. He simply adjusted his jump and came to a stand beside his exhausted friend.

"We don't have long, McKay," he said almost apologetically.

McKay simply nodded his head but continued to curl up on his side and close his eyes.

Sheppard sighed and knelt down beside McKay. He held the water bottle in front of McKay's face and said. "Here, you need to drink again."

McKay cracked an eye open and then reached for the bottle. As he took it, he looked back at Sheppard and said, "You first," and handed it back up.

"I already…" Sheppard started.

"No, you haven't." McKay told him firmly. "It weighs the same as it did when I handed it back to you before. You probably didn't have any that time either but I didn't exactly have any proof then."

Sheppard sighed and said, "You need it more. We don't have much further to go."

McKay just glared at Sheppard in his most stubborn manner as he continued to hold the bottle out to him. Sheppard finally sighed and snatched the bottle from him. He popped the top and quickly took two small sips and then handed it back. "Satisfied?" he asked, irritated that he just let McKay, of all people, bully him.

McKay took the bottle back and frowned at Sheppard before he also took two small sips and capped the bottle again. "The rest was for you," Sheppard told him.

"No, I had as much as you. I might not have the ability to tell exact weight, but I can guess pretty close. I just had the same amount of water that you took."

Sheppard scowled at McKay. "Hey, don't try to trick a scientist with such an obvious ploy and we wouldn't be having this discussion," McKay said as he tossed the bottle at Sheppard since he obviously wasn't going to actually take it back.

"Damn it, McKay!" Sheppard snapped as he picked up the bottle.

"I thought we couldn't stay long?" McKay said as he started to struggle to sit up again.

"You're at least taking this!" Sheppard growled at him as he restrained McKay with one hand and held out the other half of the power bar with the other.

McKay gave a scoffing laugh as he said, "Thought as much. I might be hypoglycemic, but you do need to actually eat and drink at some point. You are still human, right? You didn't go and mutate when I wasn't looking or something did you?"

"Rodney! Eat the god damn power bar!"

"Or you'll what? Leave me here? You might as well do that because slipping into a coma right now sounds far better than gating to another planet where we get to do this all over again. Because that's what you plan on doing, isn't it? You have no intention of trying my idea. You just want to keep dragging me through this torture course until I completely fall apart, don't you!"

"McKay! What the hell is your problem? I'm here too, or haven't you noticed? I'm working my ass off you get us both through this alive and I don't appreciate you laying out a plan that has a very high probability of undermining that work!"

"The plan I laid out is the only one that has a chance of us getting out of this alive!" McKay snapped back as he clambered to his feet to face off to Sheppard. "You're just too busy playing super hero to see it!"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"That you like being the hero. You like making the noble sacrifices to keep your weakened teammate alive. You like being the only one around to save my ass when I'm trapped in the well or fall of the cliff or pass out. You like being the hero here so much that you can't see how much I'm… _We're_ both suffering here. Please, let's end this one way or another…" McKay ended with a defeated plea.

Sheppard stared at his friend for a long moment before he turned away and ran his hands down his face in frustration. "I'm sorry, McKay… I really am… but I can't take that risk…" suddenly he reached into a pocket on is vest and spun around, pointing a stunner at McKay. "I'm getting you out of this if it kills me," he said softly and then pulled the trigger.

A look of disbelief crossed McKay's features the instant before he went rigid and then crumpled to the ground. "You're going to kill yourself with these arguments, McKay," Sheppard said softly as he came over and hefted the man onto his back. It took a while to get him positioned and secure, but after a minute, he thought he had a pretty good handle on him.

"Besides, it wasn't going to be much longer before you passed out on that beam and I don't know if I will be able to catch you like that again," Sheppard continued to rationalize his motives to the unconscious McKay.

He reached the other side of the ledge and then readjusted the force of his jump back to the structure with the added weight. With a deep breath, he blinked his eyes and then leapt. It was going to be a very long and hard march now, with far too little time, but he wasn't going to fail his friend. He had to get to the gate and get through before the bomb went off. It was the only way that he could keep them both alive for a while longer.

XXX

Sheppard had been wobbling along the beam for a while now. Every time he looked up, he could see the gate in the distance, but that distance just never seemed to get any closer. He couldn't take a look at his watch with the way that he was holding McKay and trying to keep himself stable at the same time.

He had stopped sweating some time ago and the world was tilting around him, making the issue of balance that much more difficult. But the end was in sight… if only it could get a bit closer…

"Shhhep," came a half awake mumble from his back. He felt a slight movement as McKay lulled his head a bit. "Shhheppard… you…shot…me," McKay muttered, still obviously not completely coherent yet.

"Sorry, buddy… it… was…" he felt his head getting light and he tried to shake it like he had been doing to jar himself back awake, but the movement seemed to only make it worse. "Was…" he muttered again, trying to think of what, 'it was'.

Just as McKay opened his eyes and blinked at his new position, Sheppard's head drooped and then his body slumped where he stood, slipping off the edge of the beam and taking them both towards certain death.

"Sheppard!" McKay screamed as he caught the beam they had just been standing on with his hands by pure reflex. Tightening his legs around the now unconscious Sheppard to keep him from falling had been a bit slower reaction. Sheppard was just barely caught under his arms between McKay's legs.

"Oh crap, oh crap, ohcrapohcrapohcrap," McKay muttered as he tried to adjust both his grip on the beam and his grip on his friend.

"John! John!" he screamed. Once again using the single syllable name was far more energy efficient than the two.

"JOHN!" he screamed in utter terror as he felt Sheppard slip an inch further.

Suddenly Sheppard snapped awake with a jerk, sending him slipping completely free from McKay's legs. "NO!" McKay screamed as he felt Sheppard slip free.

Suddenly two points of pain shot through McKay's hips where Sheppard had reached up and gripped his friend before he plummeted to his death. "Oh god, Rodney…" Sheppard breathed as he was finally able to take in what must have just happened.

"John... John, I'm slipping…"

"Right, ah, give me just a second," Sheppard said as he tried to shake the cobwebs from his brain again. He reached up with a hand and grabbed onto McKay's vest. Carefully and as quickly as he could, he climbed up McKay, back to the beam.

"John… hurry," McKay practically whispered as Sheppard was right behind him, reaching for the beam. Hot tears were prickling the corners of Rodney's eyes as he silently prayed to be able to hold on for just another few seconds. His hands were slipping and Sheppard didn't yet have a grip on the beam. If he fell now, they were both done for.

"Hold on, just a few seconds, Rodney," Sheppard's gentle voice told him. A few seconds later, John was lying on the beam again and helping Rodney back up as well. It was a lot like the last time that Rodney had fallen, but this time, John knew that it really was his fault this time.

"You… idiot…" McKay managed to gasp out as soon as he was on the beam before he promptly passed out again.

"Yeah… yeah I am, Rodney," John agreed whole heartedly. He sat there a moment, staring at his friend's unconscious form. He nearly killed Rodney just now simply because he didn't want to listen to the scientist's very valid arguments. There was really no justifying what he had done to his friend. He didn't want to argue anymore and… truth be told… he probably did like being the hero on some level. He had wanted to be the one to save his friend and he was willing to put them both at risk to do so. That was where he had made his mistake.

"You're right, Rodney," Sheppard said as he started to get up again. He glanced at his watch… five minutes, twenty three seconds. "I know that you're used to hearing it by now, but maybe not from me." John continued at he took a hold of Rodney's hands and began to slide him along the beam. John knew that it wasn't going to be pleasant when Rodney woke up to having burns on his backside from the maneuver. But it was far less likely to take him with if John decided to take another tumble.

"If we gate to another one of these torture worlds, we're both dead," John kept talking as if Rodney was still awake to hear him while he continued to doggedly move them along towards the gate. "The only chance we have is to do the gate jump. It's a slim chance… but a slim chance is always better than no chance."

He glanced back and saw that he was almost to the end of the beam. A four foot gap was all that separated him from the ledge that the gate was on. He bent over and patted McKay on the face. "Rodney… Rodney… Come on… I need to you wake up for just a minute…" there was no response.

John sighed and then managed to lift McKay up onto his shoulder and then made the leap across. He nearly slipped and fell at the edge, but he managed to throw his and Rodney's weight forward at the last second, sending them crashing onto the rocky ground.

Sheppard groaned as his body protested the prolonged abuse that he had been putting it through. He rolled onto his back and looked at his watch. Another groan pulled from his lips when he read two minutes, nineteen seconds.

He got up and stumbled over to the DHD. He quickly punched in the Alpha site address, knowing that that was not where the gate was going to connect to. The gate burst open… one minute fourteen seconds.

"McKay!" Sheppard yelled as he ran back over to get the scientist. "McKay, how long? You never said how soon was too soon!"

He was shaking the man now but all he received was a slight moan. "Damn it," Sheppard muttered as he picked McKay back up and carried him over to the open wormhole. He glanced at his watch when he got there. Forty six seconds.

He slipped McKay off his shoulder and stood him up so that he was leaning against his chest. "Come on McKay!" he called again with another shake.

"Wh…?" he muttered.

"Rodney!"Sheppard called desperately looking at his watch again. Twenty nine seconds.

"Whaaat?" McKay slurred.

"How long before the bomb should we go through?"

"What?"

"The timing! You said that the timing for the gate jump had to be precise!"

McKay blinked. Sheppard's watch read seventeen seconds.

"Gate jump?" he glanced next to them and saw the active Stargate. Suddenly Sheppard's question made sense.

"No more than a second… not much less either," McKay quickly spat out.

"Ok, hold on," Sheppard said as he looked at his watch and hoped that he had the timing between activation and his watch correct. "Five, four…" McKay's eyes became wide as he realized how close they were cutting it. "Three, two…" Their eyes met and a silent goodbye passed between them if this didn't work. "One!" Sheppard tossed them both sideways through the gate.

0.56 seconds after they disappeared, the gate exploded, setting off a massive volcanic event over half the planet, obliterating everything that had remained there until that point.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Thank you all once again for the lovely reviews! It's really very addicting getting those little gems

So, here we go…

Chapter 5

The first indication that Sheppard had that the plan probably worked was when he and Rodney were forcibly thrown from the gate at a much higher velocity than what they had entered. They were tossed through the air until they both landed heavily on the ground several yards from the gate.

"Rodney…" Sheppard croaked as he shifted, feeling the bones in his left arm grind against each other where they had impacted the ground ahead of the rest of his body. Distantly, he heard a painful moan from Rodney before he gasped and nearly blacked out from his own pain, but managed to hold it together and open his eyes again.

That was when he began to wonder how successful their plan really had been. He found himself looking up at Wraith pointing a stunner at his chest.

"Crap…" was all that he was able to say before he was suddenly shot with the stunner and knocked out.

The Wraith turned then and looked at the other human. Rodney was just struggling to sit up when he spied the new danger. Even before he could process just how screwed they were, he was hit by the Wraith stunner as well and sent into unconsciousness. All that was left for the Wraith to do was to communicate to his queen what he had been lucky enough to capture on his patrol to the gate.

XXX

Sheppard groaned as he dragged himself back to consciousness yet again. He was really getting tired of passing out. His mind was still slow and he hadn't yet opened his eyes to see where he was. But that suddenly changed when he heard a scream of fear and pain not far away. It was a scream that he had heard many times before but only one other time at that level.

He was awake and jumping to his feet before he even processed the situation, knowing that the last time he had heard Rodney scream like that, he was dying from a parasite suddenly expanding in his brain and that he had to be in a lot of pain to mimic that sound again.

The sight that Sheppard saw made his blood run cold. McKay was lying on the floor a few feet away from him with a Wraith standing over him, feeding hand gripping his chest. "Get off of him!" Sheppard screamed as he flung himself at the Wraith.

The Wraith turned and lashed out with his other arm, catching Sheppard across the chest and throwing him back to slam into the wall. Sheppard gasped as the air was knocked out of him from the impact and was barely able to keep his feet under him as he slid down the wall.

"Sheppard! Don't!" McKay's voice called.

Sheppard blinked away the black dots that were swimming in his vision before he was able to see McKay standing up and coming over to him. He looked perfectly healthy. In fact, he looked far healthier than he had the last time Sheppard had seen him.

"McKay? What's going on?" he asked as he looked past Rodney to the Wraith.

The Wraith gave him a sickly grin and said, "It is hard to question one so close to death." With that he turned and walked out of the holding cell that they were in to the corridor. He turned and touched the wall outside, closing the spider web like doors, trapping the two inside. "The queen will wish to speak to you soon," he said and then vanished down the hall.

"You really are addicted to pain, aren't you?" McKay admonished as he tried to look Sheppard over for injuries.

"I thought he was feeding on you," Sheppard snapped back before he gasped in pain when McKay tried to grab his left arm.

"Oh god, I'm sorry," McKay quickly said as he released his grip on Sheppard's arm. "I think it's broken," he said.

"You don't say?" Sheppard gasped with sarcasm.

McKay just looked on his friend as he worked though the pain and opened his eyes again. He looked up at McKay and said, "Sorry, you were trying to help. You didn't know."

His friend simply sighed before he reached over and grabbed something from the floor beside Sheppard. He held it up to the Colonel's lips saying, "Looks like they want to keep you alive too. It's water." Sheppard let McKay help him drink then. He gulped it down greedily. He had a distant thought that maybe he should take it easy, but right now he couldn't get that message from his brain to his lips and continued to drink until the bowl was empty.

Once the water was finished off, Rodney sat the bowl back down where he had found it. "I really messed up this time, didn't I?" McKay said as his face fell and he sat back. "I got us into this new mess. What comes after fire I wonder? You know, 'Out of the frying pan, into the fire…' because we're beyond the fire now."

Sheppard sighed before wiping his good hand across his face to removing the dribbles of water left there. "This wasn't your fault. I brought us here. It was just our luck that we wound up here instead of some other horrible place."

"So you think that the gate jump worked then?" McKay asked him.

Sheppard nodded, "It wasn't a normal gate trip, that's for sure. We were practically thrown out of the gate."

Rodney nodded, "Yeah, that's what happened when O'Neill and Sam were sent to the Antarctic gate, too. You're probably right… this is just our luck."

John struggled to his feet then, using his other hand and the wall to help him. He swayed a bit in place with a wave of dizziness and was forced to cling to the organic wall for support. "Sheppard?" McKay asked in dismay as he stood up and helped to support Sheppard, careful not to jar his injured arm this time.

Sheppard blinked and looked at McKay again. "You certainly are looking better," he said.

McKay snorted and said, "Yeah, I hear a reverse feeding can do that…" he indicated the bloody puncture marks on his chest where his shirt had been ripped away.

"He was healing you?" Sheppard asked in surprise.

"You heard him," McKay said with a frown. "It's hard to question a dead man. Had to heal me so I would be fit to visit her majesty."

Sheppard understood then and realized how terribly screwed they were.

"Sheppard?" McKay asked in a soft voice.

"Yeah?"

"Is that what it felt like? Being fed on?"

Sheppard sighed and said, "Feeding is far worse. But yeah, it's the same type of thing. It hurts like hell, but at least with the reverse, you aren't left feeling literally drained."

Rodney's frown deepened as he thought about that. Sheppard had been fed on multiple times before. He'd been given it all back as well, which was why he was still alive. It was McKay's first time ever having a Wraith get his hand on him like that before.

Rodney had awoken from unconsciousness to a searing pain in his chest. When he saw the Wraith standing over him, he was sure that he was finally going to know what it was like to be fed on. He heard Sheppard scream beside him and watched as the Wraith knocked him back.

But by then, the Wraith had released him and he realized what had really just happened. He had been healed and John had just been injured even further…

"We need to find a way out of here," Sheppard said as he pushed off of the wall and staggered over to the cell door.

McKay sighed and joined him. "Well let's see…" he said as he started counting on his fingers. "As far as I know, Teyla isn't impersonating the queen of this ship, or whatever this place is… Nor is she likely to be able to take control of this one's queen… Ronon's not here with his arsenal of cleverly hidden knives… Oh, and Beckett isn't around to trick a Wraith into feeding on him…so ah… how do you expect to get out of here?"

"I don't know… I was kind of hoping you might have an idea," Sheppard said as he looked at McKay.

But McKay only had enough time for his mind to start racing with impossible ideas before two solider Wraiths approached their cell. The two men both stepped back from the door as one of the Wriath aimed a stunner at them while the other opened the cell.

"Well, the door's open…" McKay said to Sheppard.

"Bring them," the Wraith that had healed Rodney said as he stepped up behind the two soldiers. The mindless drones stepped forward and each grabbed a man by the shoulder and ushered them out.

Sheppard had been grabbed on the left side, jarring his arm even further and causing him to hiss in pain. "Hey!" McKay snapped at the one holding Sheppard. "He's hurt. You don't have to grab him like that!"

But the Wraith wasn't listening to him and continued to force Sheppard forward by his left shoulder. Sheppard shook his head at McKay when it looked like the scientist was going to protest the abuse again. The last thing Sheppard wanted was McKay to draw their attention. He had to keep it on him or they would start abusing Rodney.

They were brought to a chamber with a throne in the middle. But the chair was currently unoccupied. But Sheppard immediately realized it wasn't because the Queen was absent. He felt the pressure in his head before he saw her step out from the shadows. "What have we here?" she asked as she stalked in front of them.

The pressure started to increase in Sheppard's head as she looked into his eyes. He was already weakened from the last two ordeals and there wasn't much left for him to draw on now to try and keep her out.

"No one is supposed to know about this planet, so how did you get here?" she asked while circling Sheppard.

"Look!" McKay suddenly spoke up, drawing the queen's attention.

"Shut up, McKay…" Sheppard gasped as he was suddenly able to think again with the pressure subsiding.

But Rodney ignored him as he continued to talk. "We didn't mean to come here. In fact, it was an accident. The gate on the other end exploded as we went through, changing the destination. We didn't come here to start anything with you."

"But you are Lanteans, are you not?" the queen asked him, staring into his eyes.

McKay gasped and looked as if his legs would have given out beneath him if he wasn't being held in place by one of the soldiers.

"Who are you?" the queen pressed as she drew even closer to McKay and ran a finger down the side of his cheek. Sheppard saw his face going red and he was shaking with effort.

"Yes, we're from Atlantis!" Sheppard called out. "And if you don't let us go, I'm sure whatever you got going here is going to have a visit from one of our ships pretty soon."

McKay gasped and sagged in the grip of the solider as the queen turned her attention back to Sheppard. "If what your friend said is true, then your people don't know you're here," she said with a smile. "Which means you have only empty threats to throw at me. Now, which one of you is going to give me the address to Atlantis?" she asked as she stood back and looked between the two of them.

Neither of them said anything, nor did they look at each other, both afraid that it would draw the queen's attention to the other. "Well, we'll see then…" she stalked in front of them, examining first McKay and then Sheppard. She stopped behind the solider that was holding him and then directed her minion to release him.

Sheppard dropped to the floor as soon as the Wraith released his hold. He gasped at the jarring of his arm and then struggled back to his knees before his head was suddenly yanked back by his hair. The queen leaned in so that her lips were right next to his ear. "You're mind is still strong but you are also the weaker right now. I could change that, you know?"

Sheppard swallowed. She was either offering him to be healed, or she was threatening to hurt McKay… either way, he knew that they were both in serious trouble right now. But there was only one response that he could give her.

"Go to hell," he rasped out.

She hissed and then suddenly her hand was gripping his chest. He cried out in pain and he was fairly certain that he heard a scream from McKay in response to the action but it was hard to tell over his own pain.

He knew immediately that this wasn't a reverse feeding. He could feel his life being sucked away. Suddenly she released him and let him slump to the floor. "I can take your life right here," she said as she walked forward and knelt beside him.

"No, stop it!" McKay screamed, but he was ignored.

She turned Sheppard over and examined her handy work. He wasn't dead, but he wasn't far from it. He was riddled with deep wrinkles and his hair was snow white.

"Oh god… Sheppard," McKay whispered where he stood.

"I can also give life," she replied as she crouched beside him and grabbed him again. With another cry of pain, all of the life that had just been drained was returned with a rush… and then some. When it ended he was just as healthy as he was before he had last left Atlantis, except for his arm. Apparently the reverse feeding wasn't capable of mending broken bones immediately.

He sat up, glaring at her as he held his left arm tightly to his chest. "Something to think on," she said as she stood again and nodded to her minions. "Both of you," she said with a glance at McKay.

Both were hauled out of the room again and returned to their cell. They were tossed in without any further ado before the Wraith simply turned and left them.

Once left alone, McKay started to pace as he began to babble, "Well at least they healed you too… mostly," he said eyeing how Sheppard was still cradling his injured arm against his chest. "But this is not good. We are so screwed. They're going to do to us what they did to Ronon. The constant feeding and reversal drove him mad… messed with his head… what the hell are we going to do? He said that not everyone is strong enough to go through all of that. I'm sure that it'll kill me. Which, yes, that'll be better than being brainwashed and giving up Atlantis… but still…"

"McKay!" Sheppard snapped, bringing Rodney to a halt as he stared back at Sheppard. "We're not going to die or get brainwashed. We're going to find a way out of here and then we're going to get to the gate and escape… got it?"

"How?" McKay yelled. He pointed to the door and said, "If you haven't noticed, we're trapped. Without outside help, there isn't much chance of that changing. And even with our health restored, we're not going to be a match for the guards when they come back considering we're unarmed. So unless you have a weapon or three that you're hiding that you forgot to tell me about, I don't see how we're going to be escaping anytime soon. That queen was right; no one knows where we are!"

"But they have to be looking for us," Sheppard tried to argue.

"Yes, sure… assuming Teyla, Ronon and Carson made it back to Atlantis. And even if they are looking for us, we have changed gates three times! And at least two of those gates were destroyed behind us so there won't even be any information to pull from them if they can track those planets down. Trust me, Sheppard, we are on our own for this one and I just don't see how we're going to get out of this like that!"

Sheppard had had enough. He couldn't take this anymore. He had been keeping McKay's panic and hysteria at bay for too long now and he just couldn't deal with it any longer. He sighed and leaned back against the wall behind him and slid down it until he was sitting with his head buried in the tops on his knees while he curled around his throbbing arm.

"Sheppard?" McKay's worried voice asked. "What's wrong? Are you still hurt?... I mean other than the obvious?"

"Just… leave me alone, Rodney," he said softly. He couldn't find it in him to yell anymore. Nor could he find words of encouragement to convince his friend that it was going to be all right and that he should be working on some way to get the door open before the guards returned.

"Sheppard… I… I'm sorry," McKay said softly as he knelt in front of Sheppard and touched his leg.

Sheppard raised his head and met McKay's worried eyes. He was scaring his friend even more by giving up like this. That was McKay's job and it was Sheppard's job to snap him out of it.

"I…we'll get out," McKay said tentatively. "I'll think of something… that's what you keep me around for, after all," he said with a humorless smile.

Sheppard stared back at McKay for a moment before he said, "Rodney, I need you to promise me something?"

"Ok," he replied with trepidation.

"I need you to promise me not to do anything stupid when they bring us back there."

"Do I ever?" McKay said with a sideways smile until he saw how serious Sheppard was being. "Ah, ok," he said, not sure what he was agreeing to.

"I mean it, Rodney. Don't do anything to draw her attention. Let her focus on me."

"Oh wait," McKay snapped as he stood up and glared down at Sheppard. "I'm not just going to stand by and let her torture you if that's what you're asking."

"That's exactly what I'm asking," Sheppard said as he struggled a moment before he stood up too. "I need you to promise me that you won't try to be all heroic and take my place."

"No, of course not!" McKay spat. "That's only reserved for you. You're the only hero around here. Have to make sure that you flirt with death, yet again, to play the hero role."

"No, Rodney," Sheppard said urgently as he realized his mistake. He stepped forward and grabbed McKay's shoulder so he was looking directly into his friend's eyes. "No, it's not like that. Right now I need you to promise me this so that you can keep sane long enough to find us a way out of here. You're the only one that is going to be able to in this case. We're no match physically and that's where my strong suite lies. You are going to have to think of something."

McKay stood there, slacked jawed, as he stared up at Sheppard. "So… you're going to let her torture you to buy me time?" he finally said. "This is insane," he whispered as he broke away from Sheppard and started pacing again.

"McKay?" Sheppard prompted as McKay paced without saying anything for a minute.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he said hurriedly with an absent minded wave of his hand. "I promise. But if you'll shut up, maybe I can think of something before it comes to that."

Sheppard smiled as he nodded and went back over to the wall to sit and wait. He watched fondly as McKay paced and began to mutter to himself under his breath. The man was a genius, but there was limited time and tools for him to work with. Sheppard was just going to have to be ready as soon as McKay came up with his miracle.

XXX

"So good to see you again," the queen said as she stalked down the length of the table that Sheppard and McKay were sitting at. "I hope you have both thought on your current situation and what I might be able to offer you."

Sheppard cast a brief glare at McKay as the scientist was about to say something. McKay snapped his mouth shut and cast his eyes down.

"You know, I'm not so sure what killing me and then bringing me back to life is supposed to achieve," Sheppard said. "I mean, sure, it hurts, but it literally puts us both right back where we started."

"So, you wish to see what it's like to feel your life stripped away, over, and over," the queen leaned in close to him so that she was whispering directly into his ear, "and over."

Sheppard swallowed and flicked his eyes to McKay. His friend still sat there with his eyes down as if he didn't even care what was happening. But Sheppard saw a muscle in Rodney's clenched jaw twitch and was surprised that the spot on the table he was glaring at wasn't smoldering with the look in his eyes.

"You don't scare me," Sheppard said boldly.

The queen hissed at him as she grabbed his chair and spun him away from the table to face her. One of her minions stepped up and grabbed Sheppard's wrists and held them wrapped around the back of the chair, drawing a cry of pain from him from the wrenching of his broken arm. "I can remedy that affliction," she practically snarled as she raised her feeding hand and then plunged it into Sheppard's chest.

Rodney closed his eyes and tried very hard to tune out John's screams but it was an impossible task. Nothing, no amount of complex math proofs or theoretical thought could block out the sounds of his best friend dying and then being brought back to life, over and over again.

He knew he couldn't say anything, couldn't speak or even acknowledge the Colonel if he was going to be able to keep his promise. But he was cursing his friend for forcing him to make that promise. He didn't know what he could do to stop it, but it was killing him to just sit there and do nothing.

_Stop, please stop_, he thought in his head over and over again.

And then suddenly, she did stop.

McKay finally looked up when Sheppard's screams seemed to cease for some time to be replaced by his gasping breath. He was his normal, relatively youthful self at the moment but he looked anything but healthy.

It was then that McKay noticed that the queen had turned her attention to him. "Would you be nearly as strong as your friend here, I wonder, Dr. McKay?" the queen said as she slowly walked around a limp Sheppard towards the scientist.

Rodney swallowed and then realized what she had just said. "Wait, how?..." he muttered as he stared up at the approaching danger with wide eyes.

"How do I know your name? Your friend, John Sheppard, is strong willed, but even his mind has a breaking point. I am a queen... I have a strong enough mind to control all the Wraith beneath me... The slightest crack in defenses is enough to allow me access."

McKay began to panic. She was saying that she had already broken Sheppard but that just didn't seem possible. How much did she already know? Did she realize their plan? Or lack there of, as far as Rodney was concerned. Maybe that was why she had stopped with Sheppard and was advancing on him. She was going to take out the threat of his intellect. _Oh god, she's going to kill me, _McKay thought as she drew closer.

"You don't have to go through this you know," the queen told him. "Just tell me the gate address to Atlantis and how to access it and you can live. I might even allow your friend here to live as well. You could both be honored servants of mine; free from fear of ever being fed upon by our kind."

McKay slowly began to breathe again as he realized that she must not have gotten much information from John. She thought that she could sway him with promises of life. In the distant past, maybe, but now... now he knew that there were more important things than just himself.

But he didn't answer her. He cast his eyes down as if considering her offer, but didn't say anything. "I see you need time to think about this," she said as she turned and walked away. She waved her hand in the air and two of her minions grabbed both McKay and Sheppard and hauled them out of their chairs.

The one holding Sheppard was holding a limp body as he had since passed out, and began to drag him with his feet dangling on the floor out of the room. "Next time, Doctor," the queen said just before McKay was also led out. "It will be you that I feed on. And I might not be so willing to give it back again once I do."

McKay suppressed a shudder as he was led out and sent shuffling down the hall in front of his Wraith guard. They were led through what looked like a lab on their way. They had come through that way before, but McKay had been too agitated at what was going to happen to really look at anything.

This time, he was actively scanning everything that they passed by, desperately searching for something that he might be able to use. It seemed that Sheppard had bought him as much time as he could and he had to find a solution now or never.

That was when he spied what was on the screen of one of the consoles that they were ushered by. McKay had to suppress a grin as he was knocked forward again by his captor. _Yes_, he thought. _That could work_.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thank you all once again for your reviews. It's great to see that people are enjoying this!

Out boys are almost out of this, finally. Just this and then one more chapter where we finally get to find out what's been going on. But for now, let's see how they manage to get out of this particular situation…

Chapter 6

Sheppard decided that he really was quite sick of waking up in an unknown area, wracked with pain. It really was getting pretty old.

This time, however, he felt something cool dabbing across his forehead. It felt wonderful, but it didn't do much to relieve the ache through his whole body. It certainly didn't do much for the sharp stabbing pain in his arm. He was slightly surprised, however, to find that his arm was now at least immobilized in a makeshift sling.

Aside from the physical pain, he knew that he was also close to reaching the addicted state that Ronon had been pushed into when he went through this. That meant that if he wasn't under close medical supervision, he could easily die from withdrawal.

He cracked an eye open and saw that it was Rodney that was dabbing a moist cloth across his forehead. "Working on your voodoo skills I see," Sheppard croaked.

The crease of worry across McKay's face eased slightly as he said, "Yeah, Carson would be proud."

"How long?" Sheppard croaked as he tried to blink the fuzziness from his vision.

"Since they brought us back?" McKay asked as he frowned. "Three, maybe four hours. They brought us some food and water, as it were," he said indicating another bowl of water and a roll and a half in a bowl beside that. "I had a few bites already," McKay said as Sheppard eyed the half a roll.

Sheppard tried to sit up but gasped in pain with the effort. McKay's arm was quickly behind his back, helping him up and easing some of the tension from the movement. "Hey, take it easy," he admonished. "I may have come up with an ingenious plan, but I'm still going to need your brute strength to pull it off."

Sheppard blinked a few times as he slowly processed what McKay had just said. "You figured something out?" he asked blearily.

"I did just say that, didn't I?" McKay replied with a smug grin.

Sheppard smiled back at him with his own smugness and said, "See, I told you you'd come up with something."

XXX

The guards returned and picked Sheppard up off of the floor and dragged him out again while another snagged McKay by the arm and led him out. "Hey! He's still too weak! You can't expect us to go through that again so soon," McKay protested loudly. "I mean, look at him, he's just barely conscious."

But his protests fell on deaf ears as they were forced down the corridors. Sheppard was completely limp between the two guards that each had one of his arms.

They were forced/dragged through the hallways and back through the lab that they had been taken through before. As soon as they were inside, Sheppard suddenly sprang into action. He yanked his right arm free from the surprised Wraith and knocked him back with his elbow. While doing so, he reached for the Wraith's stunner on his left side, stifling a yelp of pain with the movement. The Wraith was stunned and on the ground before he could react and the stunner quickly transferred to Sheppard's more useful hand.

As all of this was happening, Rodney manager to pull his arm free from the single Wraith that held him. But as he tried to dodge away, his guard knocked him with a back hand across the face, sending him flying a short distance before he crumpled to the floor.

The Wraith that Sheppard had elbowed was now reaching for his own stunner and was aiming it at Sheppard. But the Colonel had already spun around and fired the stunner he now possessed before the guard could get him.

That's when he heard McKay's yelp of pain as the Wraith hit him. Before Rodney's guard could make it more than a step towards the now prone scientist, Sheppard shot him twice with the stunner, bringing the Wraith to the ground as well.

"Rodney," Sheppard called softly as he quickly made it over to where McKay was picking himself up off of the floor. "You ok?"

McKay spit out a mouthful of blood as he rubbed his face. "Do I look ok?" he muttered around a rapidly swelling lip.

Sheppard shook his head and quickly helped his friend to his feet again. "It could be worse," he said. "Now, didn't you say you needed to do something with one of these consoles?"

Rodney nodded as he staggered across the room. He glanced over at Sheppard and noticed that the Colonel was still sweating and looked terribly pale. His arm was clutched to his chest again but outside of the sling. There was a slight tremor in the hand that was still holding the Wraith stunner that also greatly worried McKay. To top it off, he was still wandering around shirt and shoeless as his shirt was no doubt incinerated back on the last planet and Rodney was still wearing his boots.

"Yeah, guess I could be worse," he muttered and then went to work on the Wraith console with determination.

"So what are you doing?" Sheppard asked quietly as he stood behind McKay, covering him in case any more Wraith decided to poke their heads in there.

"This lab seems to be experimenting with new forms of power generation," McKay rapidly explained without so much as breaking pace with his work. "I noticed it before and saw that it looked like they were trying to develop their own version of a ZedPM."

"Well that can't be good," Sheppard muttered. He both didn't like the idea of the Wraith having that much power or that they were experimenting with something that had such a potential to be very destructive.

"Yes, that is a bit of an understatement," McKay replied. "Luckily for us, they are a long way off from that level of power generation."

"Other than the obvious, why is that lucky?" Sheppard asked.

"Because, when I rig their reactor to blow, it probably won't take us with it as long as we're outside of the facility by then."

"You what?" Sheppard snapped.

"Didn't I tell you the plan?" McKay asked as he paused a moment and looked back at Sheppard.

"You said you had _**A**_ plan and that you needed access to this console. You didn't say that you were planning on blowing things up!"

"Oh... Well, I would think that it would be a solution that you would approve of. Anyway, first I'm going to disrupt the facility's power to make it harder for them to track us and maybe give us an edge to getting out of here. I'll rig the reactor to a slow build up of power that will overload in say, twenty minutes? That should be enough to get out and then our pursuers will be minimal."

"Sounds rather insane to me," Sheppard muttered.

"You got a better idea?" McKay snapped.

"Well no..."

"Then let me work!"

Sheppard huffed as he wiped sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand. He wasn't feeling well at all and didn't like the idea that they were going to have to run for their lives in a little while. But it certainly wouldn't be the first time and he hoped that it wouldn't be the last.

Suddenly he noticed movement down one of the corridors heading to the lab. "McKay, how close are you?"

"Close, why?"

"Because we're about to have company." Just as he said that, he fired his stunner at an approaching Wraith, taking another out. But there were three more behind that one that quickly took cover around the corner and began firing at them with their own stunners.

"Oh crap," Rodney hissed as he ducked even while continuing his work. "We're so screwed."

"Not if you get that thing rigged soon," Sheppard snapped as he fired and took out another Wraith.

Suddenly a blue bolt flew at him from the other direction, narrowly missing him. "McKay!" Sheppard snapped as he whirled around and took out the Wraith from the other hallway.

"Yes, yes, yes, I got it, I got it," McKay said. He dropped then and knelt under the console. He tore into the base and reached inside, feeling around for something.

"What the hell are you doing now?" Sheppard demanded.

"Trying to make sure that they can't fix what I did," McKay said with a grimace. "Eh, I went into math and science because of how neat and organized it was. I never thought that I would be forced to perform surgery on some organic based machine."

"Just shut up and finish already!" Sheppard yelled at him as he continued to hold the Wraith off.

"Got it!" McKay proclaimed triumphantly. The lights went out all around them just then. Sheppard snagged McKay's arm and dragged him towards the only passageway that didn't have Wraith approaching from yet.

By the time the emergency lights kicked on, the lab was empty and the Wraith soldiers didn't know where their prey had gone.

"See, I told you this would work," McKay whispered smugly as Sheppard tried to hurry him along the corridors while sneaking from corner to corner.

"We're not out of here yet," Sheppard reminded him as he glanced at his watch. Yet again they were on a time schedule of a ticking bomb. Not the way that he would like to make his escape, but McKay did have a point that it would minimalism pursuit.

Sheppard had to admit, whatever McKay did to the power was certainly helpful. Even the emergency lights were flickering. Sheppard was able to time the flickers to when they crossed by an open corridor so that chances of them being spotted were even lower.

But, of course, their luck couldn't hold forever.

Just as they were passing by another corridor during a space of darkened lights, two vice like hands reached up behind Sheppard and grabbed his shoulders. Before he knew what was happening, he was picked up and thrown across the wide space where four corridors met before coming to a sudden stop as his head and right side of his body slammed into the opposite wall.

Distantly, he heard a yelp of pain from McKay, but he didn't know what was happening as his vision was swirling with black dots. Suddenly, hands were picking him up from the floor roughly and pinning him up against the wall. After blinking back the dots, Sheppard saw that it was the queen that now held him against the wall.

"You aren't worth my time," she hissed at him as she raised her feeding hand high to puncture him.

Suddenly a figure slammed into the queen from the side, knocking her away from Sheppard and allowing him to slump to the floor. He gasped in pain from both his head and what he was sure were several cracked ribs, not to mention his further harassed arm, as he tried to focus on what was going on.

He saw two bodies tumbling further away from him as they grappled with one another. When the motion stopped for Sheppard to see what was happening, he felt himself grow cold. McKay was lying flat on his back, gripping the queen's feeding hand with all his worth. She had him pinned to the ground and her hand was in constant motion towards his chest.

"McKay," Sheppard croaked as he tried to get up. But the sudden movement sent him to the floor again as his ribs and concussed head protested. By the time he had made it to his knees again, McKay had lost his fight with the much stronger queen.

Sheppard screamed his protest as he watched the queen's hand strike McKay's chest. The scientist yelled in pain as his head was thrown back. His hair was already growing lighter and wrinkles were appearing around his eyes by the time Sheppard had made it to his feet.

The Colonel knew that he was moving too slow and they were too far away. But he had to do something. He couldn't just sit there and watch the queen suck the life out of his friend. He had gotten two steps closer, and saw that McKay didn't have time for him to complete the final four or five steps that it was going to take him to reach the queen.

Suddenly the queen was thrown off of McKay as a familiar blast of red hit her in the back. The queen hissed her displeasure as she stood and turned to face whoever had just attacked her. Her back was to Sheppard now and he could see the burnt fabric of her dress from the shot but the wound was already rapidly healing beneath.

Three more red blasts came from the corridor that she was now facing, catching her in the chest. But she didn't seem all that perturbed by this as she just howled in anger rather than pain. Ronon appeared then at the corridor, blaster in one hand and drawn sword in another. "You'll pay for that," the queen told him as she launched herself at Ronon.

A grin spread over the former runner's face as he raised his blaster again, catching her in the shoulder with the next shot. She was set off balance in her attack so that Ronon was able to easily duck under her and come up behind, swinging his sword. The queen's surprised expression was left frozen on her face as the head separated from her shoulders and went rolling. The body crumpled to the ground like a puppet with cut strings, finally very much dead.

But Sheppard had missed Ronon's impressive defeat of the queen. As soon as he laid eyes on Ronon, he knew that she was no longer a threat. He had staggered over to McKay where he was sprawled on the floor.

He could see McKay's chest moving with rapid breaths and could hear the slight whimpers of pain that escaped his throat, so Sheppard knew that his friend was at least still alive. But when he had reached McKay's side, he wondered if that was a good thing or not.

As he knelt down beside his friend, he was suddenly looking at a different McKay. He was reminded of the holographic McKay that he had met in a different timeline. That one had sacrificed his life and career to figure out a way to save John's life.

Now his McKay was lying on the floor, his own life spent in the same cause but for a different reason. "Oh god… Rodney…" Sheppard breathed. He couldn't find it in himself to be brave for his friend this time. He was used to hiding how serious a situation was from Rodney to minimize the scientist's panic. But this time, he just couldn't hide his fear and anguish.

"'S ok," Rodney gasped, his voice cracking with age. "Still alive… just…" but whatever he was going to say cut off as he looked up at a figure that was hovering over them. A look of fear crossed his face, forcing Sheppard to have to look up to see who was there.

At first, all Sheppard registered was that there was a Wraith standing uncomfortably close over them. All he could think of was where was Ronon and what had happened to him? And then Sheppard realized that it wasn't any Wraith. "Todd?" Sheppard asked in confusion.

"John," Teyla's voice grabbed his attention. "Todd was the one that told us where you were," she quickly explained as she came up beside Sheppard.

Sheppard looked at Todd wondering what in the world the Wraith was up to now. But Todd seemed to have fixed his concentration on McKay. The Wraith looked over at the body of the fallen queen and then looked back at the aged scientist again. "I suppose I do owe you something for this," he muttered.

He turned then and spoke to Ronon, "You, stun the next Wraith you see and bring him here!"

Ronon looked like he was going to argue, but Sheppard caught on quickly. "Do it," he said in his commander tone. That was all that Ronon needed before he disappeared down a hallway.

"I was wounded on my way in," Todd explained to Sheppard. "Otherwise I wouldn't need the other."

By the time he had explained this, Ronon had already returned with an unconscious Wraith dragging behind him. Todd went over and made quick work of feeding on his fellow Wraith.

"Sheppard?" McKay's fearful voice asked as Todd fed.

"It's all right, Rodney," Sheppard assured him. "You're going to be all right. I promise."

McKay met Sheppard's eyes and nodded weakly.

Suddenly Todd was standing over them again. He knelt beside McKay on the other side from Sheppard and said, "Funny, you once offered to allow me to feed on you. Now the table has been turned." With that, he reached down and grabbed McKay's chest with his hand.

McKay arched his back and threw back his head in pain, but clamped his mouth shut so that he wouldn't scream again. Sheppard grabbed his friend's hand and squeezed to let him know that he was there and that everything was going to be all right.

In a matter of moments, Todd released McKay and stood up and walked away. McKay was left panting on the floor, returned to the same state he had been before his encounter with the queen.

"Rodney, are you all right?" Sheppard asked worriedly.

"Yeah… yes, I'm… I'm fine," he said in wonder as he lifted the hand that Sheppard wasn't still gripping and examined it. He touched his face tentatively and then broke out into a smile as he looked up at Sheppard. "I'm fine," he said with more confidence, almost bordering on giddy.

"Good to hear, buddy," Sheppard said as he released his grip and gave McKay a pat on the shoulder.

The movement, though, reminded him that he wasn't fine as he hissed with pain and wrapped his uninjured arm around his ribs again. "Sheppard?" McKay asked worriedly as he sat up.

"John, you're injured," Teyla said as she came up behind him.

"I'll be all right," he hissed through the pain.

"We still have to plant the charges," Ronon was saying as he made his way over to his friends.

"Charges?" McKay asked him.

"That was part of the deal," Teyla explained as she looked up at Todd again. "Todd had a spy here that reported that two Lanteans were captured and being held here. In exchange for your whereabouts, we were to help Todd kill the queen and destroy this facility."

"Oh, well, that's already taken care of," Rodney said with a smile.

Sheppard glanced at his watch as the others looked at McKay in confusion. "We have about six minutes to get out of here," Sheppard informed them. He reached his hand up to Ronon for assistance and grunted with pain as the large man hauled him to his feet.

"McKay rigged the power to blow," he finished his explanation.

"Then it seems I am again in your debt," Todd said as he turned and started to head down the hall that he and the others had come from. "We should hurry."

Ronon slung Sheppard's arm over his shoulders and practically dragged the man down the hallway. Teyla helped McKay to stand and then took their six as they all quickly retreated.

They came across some more Wraith on the way, but between Ronon, Todd, and Teyla, they weren't much of a threat. That is, until one appeared down another corridor just as McKay was passing it.

Without warning, McKay gasped in pain as a blue stun blast hit his side. He went rigid for a second before he became completely limp and slumped to the floor. Teyla quickly took out the Wraith that had stunned him and was reaching for her friend when Todd suddenly appeared.

"Take front," he told her. "I can carry him."

She blinked at him and then nodded. He effortlessly picked McKay up from the floor and they continued on their way out of the facility.

They had just made it outside when the first sounds of explosions reached them. The ground was beginning to rock under them as they staggered away, dodging a few more stun blast sent in their direction.

"Major Lorne," Teyla said as she tapped her earpiece. "We are coming your way with both Colonel Sheppard and Dr. McKay. We have several Wraith in pursuit and the facility is about to blow. Dial the gate and have medical assistance waiting for us."

"Yes, ma'am," the major's response came.

The group ran across a short open space before entering a wooded area. They were nearly thrown to the ground then as a final blast rocked them and sent the facility up in flames. But they were quick to recover their feet as the explosion didn't deter several of their Wraith pursuers.

Suddenly they burst from the woods into the gate clearing. Lorne and two other Marines were waiting for them and began to fire on the Wraith as soon as their team was clear. The gate was already open and waiting to take them home.

"This is going to Atlantis, right?" Sheppard asked Ronon as they were nearly to the gate.

"Yup, we're going home, Sheppard," Ronon told him.

Sheppard let out a sigh of relief just as they stepped through the gate.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Even as annoying as it was, the steady beeping of a heart monitor was music to Rodney's ears as he slowly regained consciousness. That sound meant that he was somewhere that was able to give him adequate medical care and the only place in the galaxy that he knew that could be the case was Atlantis. He shifted slightly and let out a slight hiss of pain as he felt a bandage pull on his chest over the wound he had received from both the Queen and Todd.

"Ach, sleeping beauty is finally waking up," a Scottish voice spoke above him.

"Carson…" McKay muttered as he pried his eyes open. "Oh god, am I glad to see you."

"I bet ye are, lad," the doctor replied as he pulled out his pen light and flashed it in McKay's eye.

"Hey! Keep that up and I'll take that back." McKay grumped as the light seared into his eye. "Where's Jennifer, anyway?"

"You know the drill, Rodney," Carson told him patronizingly. "You have been through this enough times by now. And Doctor Keller is busy with another patient at the moment."

"Hey," a strained voice from the other side of a privacy curtain called. "Keep it down over there."

"Sheppard?" McKay asked as he realized whose voice that was. But it didn't sound like his normal laid back self.

Beckett sighed and nodded. He walked over and pulled the curtain back. Sheppard was lying in the bed next to McKay's, only he wasn't as comfortable looking at the scientist. More monitors snaked wires up to and across his body. He had an IV with several different fluids hooked up to him which Keller was currently injecting something into it. His skin was pale and clammy with dark circles under his eyes and his left arm was in a cast and secured to his body.

"Sheppard, you look horrible," McKay said with his normal brain to mouth filter malfunction.

"Thanks, buddy," Sheppard croaked as he closed his eyes that had been barely open a slit a moment ago and lulled his head to the side.

"Good to see you're awake, Rodney," Jennifer said with a smile to him as she finished up what she was doing.

"What's wrong with him?" McKay snapped at her as he began to become agitated over his friend's condition.

"He's going through withdrawal from the Wraith treatment he received," Beckett quickly explained. "His reaction is luckily mild compared to what Ronon went through… or you for that matter when you overdosed on the enzyme. But it is still rather unpleasant."

"Understatement is a strong suite of yours, doc," Sheppard rasped.

McKay winced along with Sheppard as his face crumpled in pain.

"It's a failing among us doctors," Jennifer said as she finished with whatever she had injected into the Colonel's IV. She came over then to Rodney as a few of the pain lines on Sheppard's face eased and his breathing leveled out.

"Shouldn't be too much longer before the worst passes," Carson said, though Rodney wasn't sure if the doctor was addressing Sheppard, him, or just making a general comment.

Rodney lay in his bed and stared at Sheppard, not sure what to say or think as he watched his friend sleep fretfully. "He's going to be fine, Rodney," Jennifer assured him as she laid a hand on his cheek and bent down and rewarded him with a light kiss.

Rodney returned it but as soon as she stood straight again he asked, "Are you sure? vI mean, he looks terrible and we really did go through a lot. I mean, even besides the whole Wraith thing. He passed out for a minute on the planet before that one and…"

"Planet before?" Beckett asked.

Rodney stared at his friend a moment not sure what Carson is asking. "What? Sheppard didn't tell you?" Rodney asked, rather stunned that Sheppard would have left something like that out.

"Well we knew that you hadn't been with the Wraith for the whole time you were missing," Jennifer said. "Todd only heard that you were being held by the Wraith yesterday.

Beckett nodded and said, "But the Colonel hasn't been up to filling us in on the whole tale just yet."

"Oh," Rodney replied flatly. "Well, I guess I have a lot to fill you in on."

XXX

Rodney rather regretted completely filling the doctors in on what they had gone through since they had gone missing three days ago. Both Beckett and Jennifer poked and prodded him and had him hooked up to an IV of his own to regulate his blood sugar. McKay tried to protest that he was perfectly fine. But now that they had the whole story, they began to take a closer look at Rodney. When he had been brought in, they were only aware that he had been hit with a Wraith stunner and were filled in by Teyla as to why he had what looked like a feeding wound on his chest.

Once he started talking, though, Rodney couldn't stop. He told them the entire story. There was one thing, though, that McKay was careful to avoid speaking about with anyone. It was something that he wasn't even sure he was going to talk to Sheppard about, but it still weighed pretty heavily on his mind. But it didn't matter just yet. Sheppard wasn't going to be completely coherent for about another day.

XXX

Rodney was released from the infirmary before Sheppard. He retreated to his quarters for a shower immediately. He stood under the flowing water for a long time. He had to will his racing heart to slow when the water first hit his skin. He had nearly drowned several times before. Heck, in a different timeline, he did actually drown. But for some reason, the very feeling of water on his skin was enough to bring back the panic that he had fought desperately against the entire time that he was trapped in that tidal hole.

Even still, after standing in the almost scalding water for several long minutes, it wasn't until he started to recall Sheppard's calm words that had kept him going back then that he was finally able to calm now.

As soon as his unsubstantiated panic began to ease, he quickly washed and then fled from the shower, shutting the water off immediately. He was going to be fine, but for right now, he'd like to keep his contact with water to a bare minimum.

He dressed in a clean uniform, intending on going back to the infirmary to see Sheppard. But as he crossed back through the room, the bed seemed to call to him. He had slept on and off in the infirmary for the last twenty four hours. But none of it had been in comfort and one of the few things that he had been craving the whole time that he was out there was to sleep in his own bed.

"A few minutes won't make a difference," McKay muttered to himself.

He crawled onto his bed, still in his uniform, on top of the sheets and blanket. Within moments, he was snoring softly, pulled off into oblivion.

XXX

When he awoke again, he realized that the light had changed significantly since he fell asleep only a moment ago. At least, that is was he thought. But as he shifted from his stiff position and glanced at his watch, he realized that his few minutes had turned into the rest of the day. The sun that had been peeking through his window as he took his shower was now nowhere to be seen.

With a groan of stiffness he rolled over and contemplated his options. He had things he needed to check on in his lab but he needed to make sure that Sheppard was all right. He was going to go to the infirmary hours ago. If everything went well, John would have been released a while ago. But if everything didn't go well…

With that thought he started to get up to go and check on his friend. "Have a nice nap, Rip Van Winkle?" a voice asked from the darkened room.

McKay jumped up from his bed and turned to face this new threat. But even as he was turning he realized that he recognized the voice, "Sheppard!" he gasped as he put his hand over his heart. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"If you weren't such a heavy sleeper then you would have woken up when I first knocked."

"So you decided to break in?" McKay exclaimed.

Sheppard shrugged and used his gene to bring the lights up with a thought. "I was worried when you weren't there to annoy me as soon as I was released."

McKay made a scoffing sound as he sat back down. They both sat in silence for a while before McKay said, "So, you're not sick of me yet? We just spent three days together; I would have thought you would want to hide for a week."

Sheppard didn't rise to the bait. He knew McKay was trying to get him to snark back but that wasn't what he had come there for. He frowned and leaned forward, careful of his still sore ribs, before he began to talk. "No," he said simply. "I guess I got so used to making sure that you were all right I felt a little anxious not knowing where you are."

It was McKay's turn to frown as he looked away, not wanting to meet Sheppard's eye.

"You didn't tell anyone what I did," Sheppard said softly.

McKay winced and shook his head, "No, I… I didn't want people to know that I had annoyed you enough to shoot me."

Sheppard sighed, "That's not why I did it, McKay."

"It's the only reason I can think of," McKay replied indignantly. "You nearly got us both killed so it certainly wasn't some great military strategy that you were working with. It had to be that you just didn't want to listen to me anymore."

"Ok," Sheppard admitted. "Yes, I didn't want to listen to you. But not for the reasons you think. I didn't want to listen to you telling me that the only way out of there was such a suicidal plan. You said it yourself; the odds were not in our favor to try that jump thing."

"No," McKay frowned and then quickly launched into defense mode. "But it worked, didn't it! And besides, when do you ever listen to the odds?"

"When I think that there is a better way. But I was wrong this time. I thought I could just keep getting us through whatever was thrown at us. I wasn't paying attention to what you we telling me about your own condition and I certainly wasn't listening to what my body was telling me. I should have just listened to you."

"Oh, well…" McKay said, not used to Sheppard not only admitting he was wrong, but plainly telling him that he was right. "Yes, you should have."

There was another pause of silence before Sheppard got up and walked over to McKay. He held out his free hand to him and said, "I'm sorry. Can you still trust me?"

McKay looked at the offered hand and gave a half smile. "That might take a while," he said as he took the hand and used it to help him stand up. "But I'm sure you can do it, if you really, really try."

Sheppard had started to frown and then he remembered where he had heard those words before and smiled himself. "Come on; let's go get something to eat."

XXX

"Mr. Woolsey?" Chuck said as he poked his head into his boss's office. The Atlantis leader looked up from his paper work. "We're receiving a transmission from the Daedelus."

Woolsey stood up and followed Chuck out to the control room. "Thank you," he said to the technician and went over to the communications terminal. "This is Woolsey," he said.

"Mr. Woolsey," Caldwell's voice replied. "We just finished our search of the planet."

"What can you tell us, Colonel?"

There was a brief pause before Caldwell replied. "It looks like this last one was where they may have encountered their captor. There was a lab set up and it looks like it was left in a hurry. They probably detected us on our approach."

"Any indications as to whose lab it was?"

"Yes. One of my techs started looking through the computers. There is a lot of information to go through, but a rather disconcerting name was pulled from it so far…"

XXX

"…Now that's just not fair," McKay said indignantly even though he still had a smile on his face. His teammates all broke into laughter around him. He was forced to chuckle along with them. He had to admit that he did prefer to sit with his friends while eating rather than alone. He had insisted that that was when he could get some of his best thinking done. But sitting around, joking with his friends and teammates seemed to clear his head enough to be able to think again once he returned to work.

"Excuse me," a serious voice said from behind McKay. The scientist turned and looked at Woolsey as the rest of his team quickly sobered and also directed their attention to him. "I just received word from the Daedelus."

"They found the planet?" Ronon asked.

"Of course they did," McKay replied. "It's wasn't difficult to track down the nearest planet with a Stargate to where we wound up."

Ronon shrugged. "Yeah, I still don't understand that whole gate jump thing," he said. "But it doesn't really matter."

Rodney had opened his mouth to explain again, but was interrupted. "Did they find anything?" Sheppard asked as he lowered the fork that had been halfway to his mouth a moment ago.

Woolsey nodded, "There's still a lot of information to go through, but yes, they have a name for us."

All of the table perked up then. It even seemed that a few nearby tables were listening intently even if they were pretending not to.

With a frown Woolsey said, "Michael."

There was a stunned silence for a moment but then Teyla said, "But Michael is dead. I threw him off the tower myself."

Woolsey nodded and said, "Yes, but it seems that Michael has found a way around that."

They were all returning him with confused looks before McKay sighed and said, "A clone. We should have known."

"Clone?" Sheppard asked. "You mean to say the bastard cloned himself!"

Woolsey nodded as McKay spoke. "It makes sense, doesn't it? We know that he can do it, just ask Carson!"

"I'm afraid so," Woolsey said. "As far as they can tell, it's just the one. It must have been created by what was left of his followers after they didn't come back from Atlantis. It doesn't look like we'll be looking at the same problems that the SGC had with Ba'al."

"But if there is one clone, then, even if we kill him another one could be made," McKay told them.

Woolsey nodded, "Yes, it seems that we may have a rather persistent problem on our hands..." With a frown, he turned and left the team to their thoughts.

"I do not understand," Teyla said after a moment. "Why would Michael want the two of you?" he asked Sheppard and McKay.

Sheppard shook his head, "He didn't seem to want us for anything. It was more like he wanted to make our lives a living hell."

"He did an awfully good job at it too, if you ask me," McKay muttered as he turned back to the table and stared at his half eaten plate.

"Revenge?" Ronon asked.

"But why just us?" McKay asked. "We all have had a hand in making him what he is."

"Not me," Ronon said easily as he leaned back in his chair.

"Perhaps he had wanted all of us," Teyla suggested. "After all, we were all on that planet when we were attacked. Including Doctor Beckett. It may have been his plan to capture all of us, but Ronon and I were able to slip by his followers with the doctor."

"Just my luck…" McKay muttered.

"Well," Sheppard said after a moment. "Not much we can do about it now. We'll just have to be a little more careful from now on."

"Yeah, more careful," McKay scoffed. "Between you and me," he said indicating Sheppard. "We're doomed."

Sheppard smiled slightly. _Yeah, we do tend to attract trouble_, he thought to himself. _But we also are really good at getting out of it_.

He turned the subject back to making fun of McKay and the tension broke as they slipped back into their easy team dynamic. The threats out there were never forgotten, but they were very good at pretending that nothing was wrong, at least for the moment. Right now all that mattered was they were all together and healthy. They could let tomorrow worry about itself because they all knew what it was like beyond the fire; and beyond that, friends and family were always waiting to make it all better.

Fin!

A/N: Thank you all for reading and a special thank you to all that reviewed! This was a blast to write and I'm so glad that many of you have enjoyed reading it.

Yup, a sequel is in progress that will further explain what's up with Michael, but it may take a little while for me to iron it out. Please be patient with me.

Thanks again, and I hope to see you all back for the next one


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